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BOLLYWOOD

A HISTORY

MIHIR BOSE

LOTU S COLLECTION

ROLI BOOKS

To Caroline,

without whose love, dedication, heroic support
and eruouragement this book would never have been possible.
She has played the sort of role a Bollywood actress
would love to play but never be able to emulate.

Lotus CoUecdon
© Mihii Bose, 2006

All rights reserved. No part of this publicadon may be
reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission of the publisher.

The right of Mihir Bose to be identified as the Author
of this work has been asserted in accordance with the
Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in UK 2006
by Tempus Publishing Limited
The Mill, Brimscombe Port,

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QC

First published in India 2fX)7
The Lotus Collection
An imprint of
Roli Books Pvt. Ltd.

M-75, G.K. II Market, New Delhi 110 048
Phones; ++91 (011) 2921 2271,2921 2782
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ISBN: 81-7436-508-7

Typeset in Bembo by Tempus Publishing Limited
Printed at Rakmo Press, OkhU, New Delhi-110020

Contents

Mihir Bose Biography

Acknowledgements

Prologue: With Pamela in Search of Bollywood

Part 1 :

In Step with the World

The Creators

The Mighty Banyan Tree

Growing Under the Banyan Tree

Part II:

When Bollywood was like Hollywood: The Studio Era

Mavericks, Eccentrics, Bigamists

The Road to Bombay via Munich and London

106

Making a Nation Through Films

118

The Children of Rai

128

Blondes and Brunettes: Bollywoods White Women

142

Part III:

Minting Film Gold in Bombay

Searching for the Right Masala

160

The Great Indian Showman

172

Bollywood’s Classic Era

190

Asif’s Godot Finally Arrives

211

Part IV:

A Laugh, a Song and a Tear

The Explosion of the Bombay Film Song

222

Laughter and Tears

245

Part V:

Anger and After

A Shy Man and his Use of Anger.

264

The Great Indian Curry Western

281

Change in a Time of Darkness

298

The Final Frontier

317

Afterword

346

Bibliography

363

List of Illustrations

374

Index

375

Acknowledgements

Mihir Bose Biography

Mihir Bose was born in 1947, just before Indian independence, and grew up
in Bombay. He went to England in 1969 to study and qualified as a chartered
accountant. Almost immediately he took to his first love of journalism and
writing. He has written for all the major papers in Britain, having worked for
The Sunday Times for twenty years before moving to The Daily Telegraph in 1995.
Having concentrated on business journalism in his early years, he now specialises
in investigative sports reporting, particularly the growing field of sports business
and politics. He has won several awards for his newspaper writing, including
Business Columnist of the Year, Sports Reporter of the Year and Sports Story of
the Year. His books have been controversial and have also won awards. His History
of Indian Cricket was the first book by an Indian writer to win the prestigious
Cricket Society Literary Award in I990. His study of sports and apartheid.
Sporting Colours, was runner-up in the I994 William HiU Sports Book of the
Year Award. He has so far written twenty-one books, ranging from histories and
biographies, to books on business, cricket and football. He lives with his wife in
West London.

A journey of a thousand miles begins, say the Chinese, with a single step.

Back in 1992 when Nick Gordon, quite the most marvellous editor I have
worked for, suggested I write about Bollywood, with Pamela Bordes as my
photographer, I did not know I had taken the first step. But so it has proved.

This book has come a long way since then and I am grateful to so many
people across so many lands and countries that, while I would like to thank them
all, I just cannot.

I must thank David Davidar, then of Penguin India, for suggesting my name
to Tempus in the first place.

Having grown up in Bombay, when it was called Bombay, and Bollywood
was just Hindi cinema, I have always followed it, and the people in this book,
whose lives I chronicle, were people who were part of my daily life as a child.
My childhood was dominated by the making of Mughal-e Azam, and Hindi film-
songs were part of the surrounding sound of our life in Bombay, blaring forth
from transistors, as we called them, and from every paan-shop.

Even then, writing this book has been a voyage of discovery and my journey
has been made easier by various helping hands.

They include my researchers in various countries, not merely England, but in
Russia, parts of Europe, the United States and, of course, India.

1 am grateful to Ayaz Memon for introducing me to Subuhi Saiyad who did
such a marvellous job both researching material and arranging interviews with
key people. 1 am also grateful to Boria Majumdar for introducing me to Gagree
and for her help in research in Calcutta.

I cannot thank Rachel Dwyer enough for putting me in touch with Somnath
Batabyal, whose research was exemplary and particularly useful.

Many people generously gave their time and advice.

Old fi'iends like Noel Rands, who acted in Lagaan, opened doors for me to
English actors now getting acquainted with Bollywood, in particular Howard Lee,
the wicket-keeper of Lagaan. Noel also did some extremely useful research for me.

Bose Biography

Acknowledgements

Mihir Bose was born in 1947, just before Indian independence, and grew up
in Bombay. He went to England in 1969 to study and qualified as a chartered
accountant. Almost immediately, he took to his first love of journalism and
writing. He has written for all the major papers in Britain, having worked for
The Sunday Times for twenty years before moving to The Daily Telegraph in 1995.
Having concentrated on business journalism in his early years, he now specialises
in investigative sports reporting, particularly the growing field of sports business
and politics. He has won several awards for his newspaper writing, including
Business Columnist of the Year, Sports Reporter of the Year and Sports Story of
the Year. His books have been controversial and have also won awards. His History
of Indian Cricket was the first book by an Indian writer to win the prestigious
Cricket Society Literary Award in 1990. His study of sports and apartheid.
Sporting Colours, was runner-up in the 1994 William Hill Sports Book of the
Year Award. He has so far written twenty-one books, ranging from histories and
biographies, to books on business, cricket and football. He lives with his wife in
West London.

A journey of a thousand miles begins, say the Chinese, with a single step.

This book has come a long way since then and I am grateful to so many
people across so many lands and countries that, while I would like to thank them
all, I just cannot.

I must thank David Davidar, then of Penguin India, for suggesting my name
to Tempus in the first place.

Having grown up in Bombay, when it was called Bombay, and Bollywood
was just Hindi cinema, I have always followed it, and the people in this book,
whose lives I chronicle, were people who were part of my daily life as a child.
My childhood was dominated by the making of Mughal-e Azam, and Hindi film-
songs were part of the surrounding sound of our life in Bombay, blaring forth
firom transistors, as we caUed them, and from every paan-shop.

Even then, writing this book has been a voyage of discovery and my journey
has been made easier by various helping hands.

They include my researchers in various countries, not merely England, but in
Russia, parts of Europe, the United States and, of course, India.

I am grateful to Ayaz Memon for introducing me to Subuhi Saiyad who did
such a marvellous job both researching material and arranging interviews with
key people. I am also grateful to Boria Majumdar for introducing me to Gagree
and for her help in research in Calcutta.

I cannot thank Rachel Dwyer enough for putting me in touch with Somnath
Batabyal, whose research was exemplary and particularly useful.

Many people generously gave their time and advice.

BollywDDd: A History

My niece, Anjali Mazumder, very kindly introduced me to Stella Thomas,
who did a marvellous job of helping me come to terms with Bollywood
research, summarising material in a very expert way. Anjali’s mother in Canada,
my sister Panna, and father, Tapan, not only sought out rare books and DVDs of
films but also commented on parts of the manuscript.

My old Bombay friend, Papu Sanjgiri, was, as ever, marvellous in both answering
all my many queries and also obtaining information and I am indebted to him
for introducing me to Bhau Marathe, whose knowledge of Bollywood music is
awesome.

Susanna Majendie, looking for all the world like a schoolgirl again, and with
sharpened pencil to boot, went and obtained some very valuable material from
the British Library’s India office section.

I cannot thank Mehnda Scott-Manderson enough. At a most critical time, when
it seemed the project might sink, she took charge of the entire production of the
manuscript, marshalhng forces in a manner that would defeat a Bollywood director
and making sure it was done in time. Without her it would not have been. Given
that the subject matter is completely alien to her this was a tremendous feat.

My Godson Daniel Mokades, as ever, proved a most resourceful young man.

Amit Khanna very kindly gave me some of his valuable time, as did Rakesh
Roshan, Karan Johar, Kareena Kapoor and too many others to name individually.

My old friend, Hubert Nazareth was, as ever, full of good advice.

And Tarun Tejpal was generous, not only with his time and hospitality, but also
with his wisdom.

My oldest school friend, Munir Vishram, shared his memories of Bollywood
and put me in touch with Joy and Yashodra, children of Bimal Roy, whose
memories of Bollywood were very insightful.

I would also like to thank my brother-in-law, Amal Chakrabortti,and my sister
Tripti, for aO their generous hospitality and help.

Peter Foster, who long ago helped me win a cricket match in Udaipur by
running for me has, from his perch as The Daily Telegraph India correspondent,
been marvellously helpful.

Above all I would like to thank Shyam Senegal, a man I had always distantly
admired but whom I have come to know in the course of this long odyssey, and
whose wisdom I cherish.

I have learnt much from the books and material already available on
Bollywood. I have relied on them and a full list is in the bibliography.

All the people I have mentioned, and many I have not, helped me to write
this book. They are not responsible for the errors of commission and omission
that remain. Those are my responsibility.

London, June 2006

Prologue

With Pamela in Search of Bollywood

Long before Bollywood, there was a flourishing Indian cinema; indeed, even
before Hollywood.

If, as Will Hays, the President of the original Motion Pictures Producers and
Distributors of America, has said, Hollywood movies define “the quintessence
of what we mean by America,” then for over a century the Indian cinema has
carried an even heavier burden; it has tried to recreate an old nation emerging
after centuries of bondage, help it rediscover its roots, while linking it to the
present, very different, world.

But, perhaps, because the nation was so long in slavery, because foreigners
so often pillaged it, not only its physical wealth, but also its mind, making its
intellectuals feel its own culture was so inferior that they were consumed by
self-hatred and required outsiders to help to understand it and salvage something
from the wreckage of this wounded civilisation, the story of Bollywood is not
an easy one to tell.

To be fair, Hollywood, too, is a paradox. As the historian, Neal Gabler, has
pointed out in The Empire of Their Own, this quintessential American dream “was
founded and for more than thirty years operated by Eastern European Jews who
themselves seemed to be anything but the quintessence of America. The much-
vaunted ‘studio system’, which provided a prodigious supply of films during the
movies heyday was supervised by a second generation of Jews, many of whom
also regarded themselves as marginal men trying to punch into the American
mainstream.” It prompted E Scott Fitzgerald to characterise Hollywood as “a
Jewish holiday, a gentiles [sic] tragedy.”

But Bollywood is not only full of paradoxes but also fragile; you try and tell
its story and it sphnters into many other stories, none of them seemingly related
to the original one.

Let me begin with an early attempt by me to tell the story of Bollywood to
an Enghsh audience. It dates from the time when the West had just begun to be
aware of Bollywood, and in particular that the Hindi cinema based in Mumbai

aware 01 Bollywood, and in particular tnat tne Hindi cinema based m Mumbai

Bollywood; A History

Prologue

could lay claim to be the centre of world cinema, producing many times the
number of films that came out of Hollywood. In January 1992, the then editor of
You, the magazine of The Mail on Sunday, asked me to write about Bollywood. A
passionate and very creative Welshman, Nick Gordon, had recently heard about
Bollywood, was very intrigued by it and pictured it as an Indian version of the
Hollywood of the 30s. What he wanted was a piece about these opulent Indian
film stars living in their magnificent mansions and recreating a world along the
Arabian Sea that had all but vanished along the Pacific.

To introduce a small, but irritating complication, the Mumbai that Nick sent
me was not called Mumbai. It still bore the name it had from its birth four
hundred years earlier: Bombay, the Portuguese for good bay, the name these
foreign founders of the city felt was most suitable for this city that nature had
created by joining seven islands. Bombay was also what I had always called the
city, having grown up there in the 50s and bos.

Nor was the term Bollywood, that had so captivated Nick, much liked in
Bombay. Many refused to use it; others dismissed it as a bad joke, invented quite
recently in a Bombay newspaper by a columnist looking for a bit of colour
to write about the movies. That it had caught on seemed to them yet another
evidence of a damaged, insecure culture, always needing a foreign crutch to lean
on. Even today, the man who coined the term to denote the Hindi film industry,
has to defend it against charges that calling the Indian film industry BoUywood
demeans something truly Indian, and proves that Indians can only define even
their most precious products by borrowing Western terms.

My story begins on a January day on the lawns of one of Bombay’s most
famous film studios. It is the sort of day Indians take for granted and foreigners,
used to images of heat, dust and flies, do not quite know what to make of.

Mid-afternoon. The sun is shining from a clear, cloudless, blue sky. There
is a breeze blowing which would define a perfect spring day in the West, but
the locals have begun to sport the first sweaters of the year. They are talking
longingly of the cold weather that will come, giving them a chance to wear
the suits and other warm clothes they have recently acquired, including some
carrying labels from fashionable shops in London and New York.This, of course,
is a city where, should the mercury dip below 70 Fahrenheit, the front page of
the local paper. The Times of India , will inevitably have a story headlined: Cold
Snap Hits City.

Gathered along the long table, set in the middle of the weU-manicured lawn,
are various Bollywood stars, past and present. At one end is the young actor,
son of the former Indian cricket captain. Tiger Pataudi. Tiger, having learnt
his cricket in England—Winchester and Oxford—came back to rescue Indian
cricket and to become its most loved cricket captain. His son, Saif, who also went
to Winchester, has now come back to claim a similar status in the movies. At the
other end is a rising star who has just made a film which many in Bollywood

predict wiU be a “silver jubilee hit,” by which they mean it wiU be continuously
screened in cinema halls for twenty-five weeks, the first step to becoming an
India wide hit. However, both these current stars pale into insignificance when
compared to the man at the centre of the table who is, in effect, presiding over
this impromptu lunch. He is no longer in films but such is his legendary status in
Bollywood that everyone refers to him as Sahib, the word once used to denote
the all-powerful white man in these parts but now any man, white or brown,
who wields power. Whenever Sahib speaks, the hubbub of noise that is constant
ceases, and everyone listens with rapt attention.

The food is spicy and delicious, the talk is light and full of banter and there is
much gentle teasing of a strikingly beautiful young girl who, I am told by several
people round the table, wiU be the next big screen goddess of Bollywood, the
heart throb of millions of Indian males who will stick her photograph on their
walls and construct their sexual dreams round her. I turn to her and ask what I
know is a cliche question but one I feel has to be asked, “So how do you feel
about being the new sex symbol of BoUywood?”

But I barely finish the question when I realise my cliched question wiU not
get the sort of cliched answer I expected. Instead it has detonated like a Molotov
cocktail, aU the more lethal because I did not know my tongue held such a verbal
bomb. No sooner has the word sex escaped my lips then aU conversation round
the table ceases, as if a central switch has been turned off. I can hear sharp intakes
of breath aU round me. Then the Sahib, who has paid no attention to me, turns
to look at me and says, with the sort of venom that he reserved for his many
portrayals of screen heroes vanquishing screen viUains, “Where do you come
from? You look Indian, but you are obviously not Indian. Maybe you have been
away from this country for too long. We don’t use words like that in India. This
is disgraceful. You have insulted this young woman and her honour. You must
apologise to her. Right now.”

My first reaction is confusion. What I am supposed to apologise for? This
is the country of the Kama Sutra, the land where the ancient sculptures at
Khajuraho depict sexual scenes in such detail that they leave the imagination
reeling, a country where in private swear words like Benchodh, sister-fucker, and
maderchodh, mother-fucker, are very common. I have arrived in Bombay to find
that the current best-seller is a novel set in Bollywood, which describes the life of
one such sex goddess and is liberally spiced not only with words like sex, but tits,
stud, maderchodh, saUa, bastard, and has very vivid descriptions of sexual scenes.

Then I reahse that while everyone may have been teUing me the budding starlet
wiU be the next sex symbol my sin has been to use the word to her face. What has
made it worse is that I have uttered the word in front of the man regarded as the
elder statesman of the industry. The starlet is in tears and obviously distressed and the
Sahib seems ready to strike me. He is staring at me as if he hopes to pierce me with
his eyes. The only way out is for my Ups to mouth an instant, groveUing, apology.

BollywDDd: A History

Prologue

But even as I mumble my apologies I cannot help but think of the paradox of
this particular Bollywood Sahib asking me to humble myself.

For the Sahib in question has for nearly four decades been one of the great
rebels of Bollywood, a man who has always defied convention and who in his
time was the ultimate sex symbol of the industry. He is Sunil Dutt, a true, living,
Bollywood god.

His real life story reads like a ready-made script for a Bollywood movie. In
1947, as the British leave India, and the sub-continent is partitioned, young
Sunil and his family, Hindus in now Muslim Pakistan, escape to Bombay. Life is
difficult; he sometimes sleeps on the streets of Bombay but, then, he gets a break
in films and becomes a great star when he plays Bigu in the film Mother India.

Biiju is the son of poor peasants who suffer untold hardship at the hands of
rapacious landlords It is an old Indian story: downtrodden peasants, heartless, rich
landlords, both fighting for a living in a pitiless land. But Biiju refuses to accept the
age-old feudal oppression that has made the hfe of peasants like him, and milhons
of others in India, such a misery. Life is so hard that his father, who has lost his arms
in an accident, abandons the family home, leaving Biiju to be brought up by his
mother.This makes Biiju all the more rebellious. Biiju seeks social justice, is always
ready to lead a rebellion against the landlords and the established order, and the
film ends with his tragic death, shot by his own mother after he has kiUed the evil
landlord who has been trying to lure his mother into becoming his mistress. But as
his blood flows, and his mother weeps copiously, the blood-red screen dissolves to
show clear water gushing from a new dam that will irrigate the fields of these poor
peasants, so long starved of water by cruel landlords. Through her tear-fiUed eyes,
the mother consoles herself that her son’s blood is turning into hfe-giving water,
recognising the sacrifice of her beloved son as a necessary price to be paid if India
is to progress and Indian peasantry get out of its historic poverty. This is the better
world that Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, had promised and which
the movie’s director Mehboob Khan, hke Nehru, a socialist, beheved in. The film
is one of the iconic movies of Bollywood; many consider it as the greatest Hindi
movie ever made, India’s equivalent of Citizen Kane, a celluloid demonstration of
the eternal Indian mother who can also be the agent of change that wiU help its
people’s long suppressed desire for a decent hfe.

But it was what happened during the filming that made Sunil Dutt a legend.
While one of the shots was being filmed, a fire broke out; Nargis, the actress who
played Biiju’s screen mother, was trapped on the lit haystacks and as the flame
rose higher and higher it seemed she was doomed. Then, when all seemed lost,
Sunil ran in to rescue her. Whether this led to the start of their romance is not
clear but, soon after the release of the movie, Sunil Dutt married her and Nargis,
one of the great stars of Bollywood, quit to become a wife and a mother.

For Indians this was both shocking and amazing. It was hard enough that
this was a Hindu-Muslim marriage, Nargis being a Mushm. In a country where

integration between different religious groups always stops short of the bedroom,
Sunil and Nargis were breaking a long-held taboo. Even more shocking, and
very difficult for Indian film audiences to accept, was that this pair, having played
mother and son in the movies, had ended up in real life as husband and wife. But
for Sunil Dutt such conventions meant nothing. He was an iconoclast, and hke his
fictional portrayal of Biiju, in real Hfe he loved to defy the estabhshed order. By
the time the scene on the Bombay lawn was played out that January afternoon,
interestingly in a studio created by Mehboob, Nargis was dead, having died of
cancer more than a decade earher, their son Sanjay was now in films and Sunil Dutt
had long given up films for politics, representing the Bombay North West seat in
the Indian Parhament. But he continued to be the man who did not hesitate to
stand apart from the crowd. So, in the 1980s, when terrorists brought violence to
Punjab in their demand for a Sikh state, he walked fi'om Bombay to Amritsar, a
distance of over 1200 miles, to try and promote peace; he travelled to Hiroshima to
campaign against nuclear weapons and he would later go on a peace trip through
the entire sub-continent. He counted among his friends President Jimmy Carter
and, when on a trip to India, the Indian Government did not set up a meeting
between them. Carter insisted on coming to see him and spent some time with his
special Indian friend, who was so different to other Indians he had met.

But none of Dutt’s celebrated iconoclasm could extend to him accepting the
use of the word sex in public company. Bollywood films may be based on the
sexual chemistry between stars (Sunil’s marriage to Nargis was proof of that),
but the one Bollywood convention Sunil Dutt would not break was the one
that required that the word sex should not be uttered in public, just as, for all the
suggestions of sexuality on the screen, kissing was never shown on the screen; lips
could come close but never meet. I had violated this iron convention and Sunil
Dutt, the great rebel, found this a rebellion too far.

I knew India sufficiently well to know this was part of the essential hypocrisy
of the country. In the Bombay of my youth, when a restaurant owner decided
to decorate the walls of his new restaurant with explicit motifs from Khajuraho,
some citizens outraged by it got a Bombay High Court order to remove it. The
judge saw nothing incongruous in letting Khajuraho be promoted as a must-see
site for tourists but deciding that reproductions of scenes from Khajuraho, on the
walls of a Bombay restaurant, were injurious to public morality.

But at least the judge could argue Khajuraho was many hundreds of miles
from Bombay and not many Indians had ever seen those explicit sexual
sculptures. Sunil Dutt, however, made me apologise while the person, standing a
few feet away from him, and busy taking photographs of him and the other stars,
was Pamela Bordes, who just under three years earlier had been at the centre of
the biggest sex scandal in Britain since the Christine Keeler affair. On March
12, 1989, the fi-ont page of The News of the World, under the headline “Call Girl
Works in Commons,” wrote:

Bollywood; A History

Prologue

A top call girl is working in the House of Commons as a Tory MP s aide, we can
disclose today. Pamella Bardes [the newspaper and others initially got the speOing
wrong. Pamela later made it clear there was only one 1 in her first name and an o,
not an a, in her surname] who charges at least ;£500 for sex, is research assistant to
backbencher David Shaw. And she has escorted Sports Minister, Colin Moynihan,
to a glittering Conservative party ball. There the high-class hooker—reputed to be
the best paid in London—mingled with other Government ministers and Premier
Margaret Thatcher.

The scandal will shock the Commons.

In the House of Commons, a Labour MP tabled a series of questions about
the affair.The story not only dominated the media but provoked an embarrassing
media war between two prominent editors. Pamela had been the girl-friend of
Andrew Neil, then editor of The Sunday Times but had been pictured holding
hands with Donald Trelford, then editor of The Observer. Trelford complained
that the way the Murdoch press, in particular The Sun, had reported what he
called his brief connection with Pamela, insisting there was nothing improper in
it, while ignoring her much longer involvement with Neil, was a “crude abuse
of media power.” It was deeply hurtful to his wife and children and he called on
the Office of Fair Trading to widen its inquiry into cross-ownership to extend
to nationality of media owners and the scale of foreign interests.

Pamela, herself, claimed her revelations could be more damaging than the Keeler
affair. The Sun, under the headline; “Pam: I Could Bring Down Govt.” reported;

She made her astonishing claim in a phone call to soft-porn publishing magnate,
David SuUivan. He said 27-year old Pamela, a close friend, told him ‘The City
would grind to a standstill if I spoke out. What I could reveal would make the film
‘Scandal’ look like a teddy bears’ picnic.

But, although the intense media intensity forced Pamela to flee to Bali, and
then Hong Kong, the story never had the political legs that made the Keeler
affair an historic moment in British political and social life, inflicting much
damage on Macmillan’s Tory Government from which it never recovered. This
was more of a story about an exotic, beautiful young girl from a faraway land
whose activities titillated the nation for a time. By January 1992, the name
Pamela Bordes produced a knowing grin in Britain but not much else, and
she herself was keen to forget her past and reinvent herself as a professional
photographer. She had been to Africa and photographed refugees and the plight
of many other victims of the wretchedly-run, black African states. At the height
of her notoriety. The Daily Mail had bought her story. Now You magazine was
sufficiently impressed by these photographs to decide she would be the ideal
person to photograph Bollywood. She had accompanied me to take the pictures

that were meant to illustrate my article and just before I had posed my question
to the starlet, causing Sunil Dutt to explode, the great Sahib had been telling
Pamela how much he had admired her ever since she won Miss India and how
brave she was to try and make it as a photographer.

If I found Sunil Dutt’s attitude depressing, but not surprising, I was quite
stunned when Pamela, who had turned to me for support, shunned me. She was
almost as horrified as Dutt had been by my question, rebuked me for using the
word sex and feared I may have jeopardised our entire assignment. Indeed she
tried to distance herself from me and told anyone who would listen, “He has
forgotten how to speak like an Indian.”

My encounter with Sunil Dutt, revealing though it was, was essentially minor.
However, over the next few days 1 was to learn a lot more about Bollywood, as it
came to terms with Pamela. Having grown up in Bombay, I thought I knew this
world; now I had to quickly revise my opinions as Pamela took over from the
stars and the stars themselves, electrified by this very different star from another
world, could not get enough of her. Their reaction completely turned on its head
the story I had come to teU.

I had come to write about the Bombay film industry as the modem version
of the medieval alchemist’s dream: you touch it and it turns to gold. Every day
hundreds of young men and women came from all parts of India, hoping to touch
this film gold Bombay produced: they knew if they acquired a bit of the star dust
they were sure to join the pantheon of gods, their portraits on huge bill-boards
that litter the city, their words and deeds—some real, others imagined—reported
in the dozen or so film magazines produced there, their fortunes made for ever.
Just weeks before I arrived in India, a novel based on the Bombay film industry
had become the biggest best-seller in the country’s history.

Now Pamela took over the story, becoming for a short time the biggest star
in Bollywood. Even at Mehboob studios, it was evident the script was changing.
That very morning, a Bombay paper had splashed on her presence in the city
and, as we arrived at the studios, Pamela created such a stir that little knots of
spectators and some photographers followed her, rather than the stars. And while
I grovelled to Sunil Dutt, careful to keep to the conventions of India, Pamela
strutted the lawns of the Mehboob studios, almost as sought-after as the stars
themselves. Over the next few days, Bombay newspapers carried more front
page stories of her photographing the film stars and soon there were more
photographers following Pamela, the photographer, than the stars she was trying
to photograph. Long before we finished our assignment, producers were queuing
up to offer her film roles. In the final reel of this real life film, with a touch
which even Bollywood might not have dared script, her own mother, who had
shunned her for 12 years, rang to suggest that she should come back to live in
India, contest a seat in parliament and fight ‘injustice’.The young people of India
were, her mother told her, all ready to support her.

Bollywood: A History

Prologue

By this time I was no longer a man writing a magazine article about
Bollywood but a chaperon for Pamela. To borrow John Kennedy’s description
of his visit to Paris with his wife Jackie, I was the man who had accompanied
Pamela to Bollywood. It made me realise how by just being with someone
famous you became famous yourself or at least in demand. Stars who did not
know I existed, literary and artistic Bombay, which had never cared for me, and
friends I did not know I had, beat a path to my hotel door, hoping to gain access
to Pamela. A journalistic assignment that had started with a search for Bollywood
gold, found me suddenly holding a pot of gold I did not even know existed but
which, for a few days, everyone in Bombay hunted—and all because the only
way to Pamela was through me. It was a revealing insight into Bollywood and
how it both creates and copes with fame.

I had had no inkhng that going to Bollywood with Pamela would so dramatically
rewrite my script when, a few weeks earlier, I had accepted You magazine’s assignment.
Perhaps I should have been warned by a rather curious request just before I left
London. I was invited to a lunch by the editors of the magazine to meet Pamela.
This was unusual enough since in previous assignments no such lunches between
writer and photographer had been organised. I arrived at the small, discreet, I talian
restaurant, tucked away in a side street in Paddington, to find an intensely fi-ightened
girl, who was fearful that the moment she stepped on Indian soil her identity would
be discovered and the trauma she had sufiered, when The Mews of the World revealed
her, would be repeated. Pamela had not been back to India since her notoriety,
although she had often flown over it to escape from the Fleet Street rat pack. The
commissioning editor told me “Pamela is very worried about going back to India.
She wants you to escort her.’’This was a new, totally unexpected, demand.

As a writer I was used to photographers’ complaints; usually they felt they were
not given sufficient importance or enough time with the subject of the article
for their cameras to do justice to them. But I had never met a photographer who
could not look after himself or herself Nor did I know what being a minder
to Pamela involved. In any case, I was flying to India via another country so, for
a start, we would arrive separately, with Pamela getting to Bombay before I did.
It was decided that she would remain at the Oberoi, the grand hotel along the
seafront in Bombay where we were booked to stay, until I arrived and, after that,
while we tried to discover the secrets of the stars of Bombay, I would try and
make sure Pamela’s deadly secret was preserved.

My first problem when I got to the Oberoi was actually finding Pamela.

She had arrived just before me and was so nervous that she had initially thought
of registering as Mrs Bose, which may have raised sniggers among my friends,
but could have proved devastating when, as happened a few days later, Pamela
was on the front page of every newspaper in Bombay.

Finally, she chose to register under her maiden name, Pamela Singh. But the
hotel was told her presence must not be disclosed. I later discovered that in

the Oberoi’s computer Pamela was listed as “Singh (Incognito), P.” I eventually
located her, but the Oberoi instituted such an elaborate screening system that,
although they knew I was her colleague and staying just a few floors away, even
my calls were routed through the operator and via the lobby manager, who
would check my name, consult Pamela and only then let me speak to her. When
I asked the lobby manager about this, he said, “Sir, this is standard procedure for
all celebrities who want privacy.”

She had even refused to allow You magazine to wire her money to the local
Thomas Cook office. She felt having to go to the Thomas Cook office might lead
to her identity being discovered. Instead, they wired the money to me and I paid
her. However, as she waited for me in Bombay, slowly running out of money, she
made anxious calls to You magazine and to my home in London, causing no little
confusion at home, and some annoyance at the magazine. By the time I arrived, and
collected her money from Thomas Cook, she had very nearly run out of cash.

Once in Bombay, she insisted we travel not in ordinary taxis but in hotel cars
with tinted glass, a new experience for me but something she was very used to
as a sure way of avoiding the prying eyes of the paparazzi. On one of our trips
to meet the film stars, she told me the story of why her previous experience had
made this necessary. At the height of her notoriety in London, she had fled to
Bali, hoping to avoid the Fleet Street pack. But, as she left a Balinese restaurant
on a motorcycle, some journalists in a jeep caught up with her. Her motorcycle,
in trying to avoid this jeep, crashed, injuring her. For a time she feared she may
need plastic surgery. I looked at her face as she spoke; there was not a mark on
it, but there was no hiding the terror in her voice.

Of course, a few people in Bombay had to be told who Pamela was. Rita
Mehta, the editor of Cine Blitz, who exercised a silky control over the stars
and was helping us get some interviews, knew the real identity of P. Singh
(incognito), but was under strict instructions not to tell the stars, unless she felt
it was absolutely necessary to get an interview.

Our initial problem in Bollywood though was not in stopping Bombay
journalists discovering Pamela, but finding stars willing to talk to us. Rita had
supplied us with a number of contacts and even the home numbers of some stars
but, try as I might, I could not get past their secretaries. The secretaries required
a little convincing that You magazine and Mail on Sunday existed and that this
was not a hoax. Like most Indians, they thought respectable British media must
mean the BBC or The Times. But once past this hurdle the secretaries, who were
always male, even for the female stars, were helpful and made many promises of
interviews with the stars. But, alas, none of them were kept. Suketu Mehta has
written that India is the great land of no; ask for anything and the answer is no;
it is India’s version of the great waD that keeps out foreigners. I was discovering
a variation on this theme. Bollywood was the land of the male secretaries who,
without actually using the word no, produced the same result.

Bollywood; A History

Prologue

Appointments were made and broken. On one occasion we arrived at the
home of Sanjay Dutt, the son of Sunil, at the appointed time of 1.30 pm, to find
a car going in the opposite direction. We were told Dutt Sahib had to go to a
shoot at the studio and nobody knew when he would be back.

But we had an appointment, 1 wailed. The secretary looked at me with pitying
eyes, offered sugary tea made with condensed milk and counselled me to wait.
As the sun set we were still waiting and the secretary offered me another
appointment, a few days later. So it went on; phone calls to stars, encouraging talk
with their secretaries, arrival at stars’ homes, then endless hours kicking our heels
in the anteroom of the stars, drinking sugary tea and being told by the secretary
that the star would be back any time; very, very soon; have some more tea.

After a week of disappointments, 1 was almost ready to give up when, largely
thanks to Pdta, who had taken a shine to Pamela and enjoyed the cloak and dagger
operations she insisted on, we did manage to fix some appointments and even met
stars who seemed to wear watches. Quite amazingly, Amitabh Bachchan, India’s
greatest film star, was our first and very prize catch. 1 am not quite sure why he
agreed to see her. A decade earher, while making a film, he had badly injured himself
There were fears he might not hve and the nation had held its breath, women
offering prayers for his recovery, with queues a mile long forming outside the
Bombay hospital, offering to donate blood and the media issuing hourly bulletins of
his health. Now, after a short break fiom films, he was about to make a comeback and
was, probably, intrigued by the prospect of being photographed by Pamela.

Amitabh had said come at 6.30 in the evening. As we drove up, the police
guards, who stood outside his high-waUed house, opened the gate and we were
shown into his secretary’s office.

I had come prepared for yet more cups of sugary tea and condensed milk
but, prompdy at 6.30 pm, Amitabh emerged from the house: a tall man, in white
Indian pyjamas and kurta, topped with a black shawl. I told him we wanted to take
pictures and he nodded his head as if this was routine. If he recognised Pamela his
eyes gave no hint as he led us across the lawn to his own office. This had some nice
sofas and Pamela decided to appropriate a couple to create the right setting on the
lawn where she wanted to take his pictures. For the next half-hour, as Pamela set
up her lights, Amitabh played verbal chess with me but gave me the impression he
had half an eye on what Pamela was doing to his lawn.

In the garden, under the bare gulmohar tree—a favourite of the Mughals
from which lights had been suspended, the servants laid out trays of cheese
and tomato sandwiches, chocolates and samosas for us. Pamela, who had been
complaining that she had no assistant to work with, recruited the servants and
got them to pose for her to check the lights and focus. Amitabh emerged from
his office to find his lawn littered with discarded Polaroid shots but dutifuUy sat
in the chair and posed for pictures, responding to Pamela’s every command with
alacrity.

By the end Pamela was in love with him: “I don’t care about his looks—he
has such character.” Amitabh bade goodbye without acknowledging Pamela in
any way but the next day rang Rita Mehta, and told her that he had instantly
recognised her. When Pamela heard this, it only increased her love for him.

It did seem that female stars might have a different reaction to Pamela. Dimple
Kapadia, who saw herself as a cross between Bette Midler and Barbra Streisand,
initially reacted to Pamela with horror. We were talking in the front room of
her father’s sea-front house in Juhu, while she got ready for the day’s shooting:
a scene in a Hindi remake of Lace. I mentioned to her that Pamela would come
and take pictures. “Pamela who?” she asked.

“You know,” I replied, “Pamela; Pamela Bordes.”

“Oh, please, I don’t want to be pictured with her.” I hastened to assure her that
Pamela would take the pictures and Dimple turned to her make-up man and put
some more pancake on her face.

It took three days for Pamela to finally photograph Dimple: appointments
were made and cancelled with such regularity that I began to suspect Dimple
did not want to be photographed by her. Then she finally had time and was
so charmed that Pamela stayed for lunch with the family. Later, Dimple rang
Rita Mehta to say, “She is such a sweet girl. I wish you had told me right at the
beginning that Pamela would be taking my pictures.”

Pamela’s identity came perilously close to being revealed at a mahurat
ceremony. This is perhaps Bollywood’s most unique contribution to the making
of motion pictures and shows how India shapes and moulds imported ideas. No
film in India begins shooting unless a semi-religious ceremony is held to mark
the first shoot. The stars and the production team gather together, usually in a
hotel where, before a single scene of the film is shot, a coconut is split open,
flowers are offered, arati is performed with a lit lamp circled round the camera,
which is treated as if it was a god in a temple. Then, what Indians call aVVIP,
a Very, Very Important Person, gives the clap for the first shot and the shooting
of the film can begin. Although the roots of this ceremony lie in the beliefs of
the Hindus, similar rites are performed when new machinery is installed. What
makes Bollywood unique is that Mahurat is performed by all film directors,
whatever their religion, emphasising the cultural unity in India, despite religious
differences.

We had been invited to the Mahurat of a film called Bechian (Disturbed). The
ceremony was at 8.30 pm by the pool of the Hotel Sea Rock, a popular haunt of
Bollywood.The invitation itself was a good indication of the Mahurat ceremony.
The front page of the invitation had a photograph of the male and female leads
both wearing hats whose brims bore the labels Pink Panther. The film promised
to introduce what it called, “New Loving Star Sidhand Salkaria” and the back
cover had the word Om (the word Hindus use for prayers and meditation, and
which is the Hindu equivalent of Amen) painted in very large red colours.

Bollywood; A History

Prologue

The invitation splendidly illustrated the mix of modernity and tradition that
Bollyw'ood so specialises in.

As the ceremony was due to start, I noticed the director’s wife had begun to
take an interest in Pamela and, just before it commenced, she looked at Pamela
and said: “You must have heard this before, but you look exactly like Pamela
Hordes, the woman who did all those things in England.”

Pamela said: “Really? 1 don’t know anything about her.”The director’s wife
turned to me and said, “Don’t you think she looks like Pamela?” I mumbled, “I
don’t know; which Pamela?” Then, fortunately, the director cracked open the
coconut and the cameras started rolling.

But perhaps because she had survived the Mahurat ceremony, or perhaps
because we had spent almost a week in Bombay without anyone in the media
becoming aware of her, Pamela began to feel confident that she could survive
Bombay without being discovered and started tapping into her old network.
She arranged to meet Sonu Walia, who could have been her alter ego.Walia saw
herself as the Michelle Pfeiffer or Julia Roberts of Hollywood but regretted she
didn’t get roles that “stretched her.” Like Pamela, Sonu had been a Miss India and
done modelling. She said that her New Year resolution was to be a “bad girl.”

However, this desire to be bad did not extend to condoning kissing on the
screen. This was then just being allowed in Hindi films, having been banned
for years, but remained a sensitive subject. Sonu did kiss in one film but felt “a
simple peck on the cheek would be acceptable, but a long drawn-out kiss would
be totally unacceptable.” “How long is a long drawn-out kiss?” I asked her. “Oh,
one that lasts for ten seconds.”

We had to wait slightly longer than that for the Pamela drama to come to its
climax. It began to unravel as we decided to “do” a starlet, Kunika.

She was advertised as one of a new breed of Bollywood film stars: her father
was in the air force; she was brought up in a convent and, unlike many of the
other stars, was not afraid to discuss her personal life. She lived with an older
man, the son of a famous film star—indeed for some in Hollywood that was her
sole claim to fame—and she was quite clear about what she wanted to be: “I am
trying to become a vamp.”

She could not believe that she was being photographed by Pamela and kept
asking me, “Is this the Pamela?” Pamela had decided that the best way to project
Kunika, the vamp, would be to shoot her in a swimsuit round the Oberoi pool.
As she did so, we were joined by the PR lady from the Oberoi, Joanne Perera.
It seemed word was getting out that Pamela was in town and she wasn’t sure
how long she could hold the dyke. “I am getting calls from aO the papers.
“Please, Joanne, we know Pamela is there: just tell us where; where are you
hiding her?”

The pool overlooked the tower that housed The Indian Express, one of the
city’s leading papers, and I began to wonder how efficient the Bombay press

really was. Surely by now, if Fleet Street had been interested, the reporters would
have been camping round the pool?

Then suddenly the dam burst and all of Bombay discovered Pamela.

The next morning my phone rang. It was Behram Contractor, editor of The
Afternoon Courier and Despatch, one of Bombay’s liveliest evening papers. He was
an old friend and a man famous in Bombay for writing a daily column under
the pen-name Busybee that was both humorous and incisive, a must-read in the
city. He asked me if Pamela was my photographer. I did not like hiding the truth
from Behram but, given the strict conditions Pamela had imposed, I had to deny
any knowledge. However, I was fond of Behram and felt I should check with
Pamela if she wanted to talk to him. I called her, told her Behram was Bombay’s
best loved journalist, and she agreed to talk to him but insisted she would ring
him. I rang Behram and told him to await a call from Pamela. I felt I had done
the right thing with both Pamela and Behram

What followed was extraordinary. That afternoon his paper led with a story
headlined “Pamela Hordes in city, but staying behind cameras.” Behram felt this
was so important it deserved more prominence than the story of the crash of a
French airbus where eighty-six of the ninety-six people on board had died.

I had told Behram my conversation was off the record; that I was merely acting
as a link between him and Pamela; that we were talking as two old friends. But
he reported it as if I was as much the subject of the story as Pamela. He wrote:

In town, and more elusive than the Scarlet Pimpernel, is the former Miss India,
Pamela Bordes... This morning, this reporter finally managed to catch up with her,
though only over the telephone, and through the kind courtesy of Mihir Bose. At
first, Mr Bose denied any knowledge of Miss Bordes being with him. He was here
on his own, doing a story on the Indian fdm industry, he said.Then, probably feeling
bad at letting down an old colleague, as well as most senior journalists in the city,
most of whom are his old colleagues, he called again and admitted that Miss Bordes
was here. Keep your telephone free. I have given her your number and she will call
you, but only to chat with you, and not for an interview.’ he said. She did call, talking
in a crisp British accent, not at all put on.‘I simply can’t give you an interview: I’ll
lose my job’ she said. ‘The press agency for which I am working has sent me on this
reportage with clear and definite instructions that I am not to give interviews, allow
pictures to be taken or get myself into the media. My brief is to get on with the job
without any distractions.’

I was furious at the way Behram had made me the subject of his story but
Pamela treated it as if this was what you expect from the media. That afternoon
at Mehboob Studios, as little knots of spectators pointed to her, Pamela strode
on to the set as if it belonged to her. Then, while I suffered my humiliation at
the hands of Sunil Dutt, she reminisced with him as if they were old friends

Bollywood: A History

Prologue

photographed Saif Pataudi and then got Anupham Kher, the rising star, to be
pictured in garish boots against a lavish set meant to represent a palace.

The next day finally saw the arrival of the Bombay paparazzi as Joanna Perrera
was forced to admit that Pamela was in the hotel. It was a curious sight. I was
walking across the lobby when suddenly Pamela appeared on the floor above,
shouting my name. For a moment I thought she was being excessively friendly,
then realised she wanted me to stop someone. He was a photographer and, even
as she shouted and gesticulated, he ran past me and the gathering hotel staflF.“Get
his film, get his film,” Pamela kept shouting.

The hotel staff locked the entrances, the film was seized and Pamela pacified.
It seemed that as she went to the Oberoi gymnasium to do some exercises the
photographer, who had been concealed in the loo, emerged and began taking
pictures. If only he had asked, said Pamela, she might have agreed. “He would
have had to wait while I got dressed, but I didn’t want to be photographed with
my hair like this.”

The extraordinary interest in Pamela made me realise that she had been right
to be fearful in London about returning to India. Ever since her notoriety in
England, the Indians had been in a frenzy about Pamela and everyone in India had
wanted to claim her. Pamela, who went to school in Delhi, and took up modelling
in Mumbai, was claimed by both cities. Tavleen Singh had written in Tlte Indian
Express, “Wherever you go in Delhi these days—drawing-rooms, restaurants, ofiice,
bazaars—^you are likely to be asked one question: did you know Pamela Bordes?”
T/ie Sunday Observer, a Bombay paper not associated with the UK version, had seen
it as India’s great revenge. In an editorial, it called it, “A case of the former colony
getting its own back against the Raj.” Under a headline “Atta girl,” it wrote,“Sock
it to them. Show these fuddy duddies that whatever Christine Keeler could do an
Indian girl can do even better. Eat your heart out Keeler.”

And now, with Pamela in their midst, everyone in Bombay wanted to interview
her. And, since she was still incognito, all the calls were being directed to me. I
had grown up in this city and although by that stage I had been living in London
for twenty years, I had kept coming back to write about India. But in the past,
apart from the customs and immigration officials, nobody had taken any notice
of my comings and goings. Now everyone wanted to talk to me. So many hotel
messages would pile up in my room that when I returned from interviews with
Bollywood stars it was often difficult to open the door.The editor of The Times of
India , the city’s most powerful newspaper, rang five times—once at midnight—
to arrange an interview with Pamela. Dom Moraes, the poet, took a very novel
approach in order to get to Pamela. When he rang me he said he did not want to
follow the herd and talk to Pamela. “I am more interested in talking to you, the
writer who comes with a photographer and finds the photographer the story.”
But when we met, he spent all the time talking to her; the article he wrote was
all about her and, on a later visit, when we accidentally bumped into each other,

he acted as if he had never met me. British Nandy, editor of The Sunday Observer,
who had in the past taken great pleasure in knocking my books in print and
describing me as a worthless writer, now rang me repeatedly to get to Pamela.
Having been incognito as a writer for twenty years, I had suddenly discovered
fame as an agent for a photographer who wanted to remain incognito.

Pamela, herself, was getting the more personal messages. One journalist sent a
lovely handwritten note to request an interview: “I am only doing this because
my editor has asked me; you know what editors are like. But I don’t want to talk
about your past, just about your rhinoceros. I shall be waiting in the lobby until
II pm wearing a suit and looking very despondent.”

Pamela asked, “What does despondent mean?” Then said, “They are so sweet
over here. Not like the Fleet Street mob.”

After all her efforts to remain anonymous, I had expected her to crumble
in the face of publicity but she seemed to revel in it, as if a great weight had
been lifted off her shoulders. The previous day, at Kamilsthan studios, when we
had interviewed Raj Bhabbar, whose principal claims to fame are that he was
stfll a socialist and was once married to two women at the same time, Pamela
had played the shrinking violet: she would not let a photographer who had
recognised her take pictures of her.

However, by the time we came to Kher, Pamela had acquired half a dozen
helpers and it was difficult to know who was the star, Kher or Pamela. “He is so
camp,” said Pamela as she directed her helpers to pack up her equipment.

The publicity seemed to make even established stars eager to make way for Pamela.
Shammi Kapoor was then one of the great established, if aging, stars of Bollywood.
Once famous for his action movies, Kapoor had, by this time, rationed his work and
had a guru on whose instruction he wore an amber necklace and a solitary ruby
earring in his left ear. He lived in Malabar Hfll, overlooking the lovely bay that frames
the city and provides a breathtaking vision of the shimmering Arabian Sea. We were
shown into his marble living-room, decorated with the skins of three tigers he had
killed. But for Shammi Kapoor it was Pamela, splashed all over the papers, who was
the star. When his wife offered me some sandwiches, he said, “Why are you offering
all this to Mr Bose? It is Pamela who is the star; she needs the food.”

AH this was a prelude to the moment when Pamela, the photographer,
became Pamela, the star, outshining even the greatest of Bollywood stars. This
came when we went back to Mehboob studios to interview Madhuri Dixit. At
twenty-two, she was then the great new female star. She was in such demand that
a producer who wanted a successful film had to cast her as the leading lady. She
saw herself as the Meryl Streep of Bollywood and zealously guarded her privacy.
It had taken me days to set up the interview and it was finally agreed the day
after Behram broke the Pamela story.

We were shown into her dressing-room on the first floor of Mehboob Studios
where Madhuri was getting ready to film a song-and-dance sequence. The

Bollywood: A History

Prologue

dressing-room had a dirty, bare floor, a row of seats round the walls and a toilet
that was a hole in the ground.

Pamela took one look at Madhuris skin and said contemptuously,“It is so bad.”
She then hurried downstairs to the studios to try to find the right background
against which to photograph her and one that would help mask her dreadful skin.

I was left alone in the studio, except for Madhuri s father, who .sat in a corner.
Madhuri was the female star every Indian fantasised about, having the sort of
voluptuous looks that Indians like in their females. But she was also an unmarried
woman, presumably a virgin, and she could never come to a shoot without being
chaperoned, generally by her mother. But that day her mother could not come
so her father had taken over. His job was to make sure nothing happened off
the set, even as on the set Madhuri continued to project her sexuality in such
a way that most Indian males wanted to take her to their bed. As Madhuri got
ready, he buried himself in a Jeffrey Archer novel and every time 1 said anything
he pointed to the book and said, “Very good.” It took me some time to figure
out that he was virtually stone deaf and had interpreted all my questions as an
attempt to determine Archer’s literary merit. Madhuri’s taste in novels, I later
discovered, extended far beyond Archer to science fiction and Asimov.

By now Pamela was in the middle of the Bombay photographic scrum. As she
spoke to an old star, who was a follower of Rajneesh, a photographer emerged
from the surrounding bush to take a picture. Pamela imperiously demanded the
roll and tore it up with some relish.

On the set where she had arranged to photograph Madhuri, some forty
photographers had gathered to take a picture of Pamela at work. As she tried
to set up her lights, they kept clicking away. “Your flash is interfering with my
work,” shouted Pamela, but that was hardly likely to clear the throng.

Eventually, Pamela agreed to have her photograph taken; she stepped outside
the studios and posed for half an hour. This gesture not only charmed the
photographers, it created an immediate fan club. One photographic assistant said,
“Madam, 1 shall give up my work and come and work for you.” He appointed
himself Pamela’s secretary and tried to regulate who could photograph her.

I slipped away to talk to Shobhaa De, the columnist whose caustic tongue
is feared by all Bombay. Her novel. Starry Nights, based on Bollywood, had
become the biggest seller in the history of the country but, for now, Pamela
overshadowed everything.

Every few minutes the phone rang, providing virtually a running commentary on
Pamela’s movements. Every now and again the front doorbell rang and the servant
would announce the arrival of another photographer hoping to catch a glimpse of
Pamela in the mistaken belief that she had accompanied me to Shobhaa’s house.

By this time Pamela had decided that if Bombay’s journahsts wanted to interview
her she would do it in style. So, by the side of the same Oberoi swimming pool
where she had photographed Kunika, she spoke to Pritish Nandy.

When he had gone, Pamela said, “You know, he is Just like Andrew Neil.”
Since Nandy is short, dark and balding, I was not sure Andrew Neil would have
been flattered.

There being no ready Donald Trelford figure in Bombay, Pamela spoke to a
man from The Times of India and as she did so I had a call from Shobhaa De.
“Mihir, 1 have fallen in love with Pamela. She is wonderful, such an innocent girl.
Ask her to talk to me and I will give her the most favourable publicity.”

At midnight came the most important call, from her mother. They had not
spoken for twelve years; now she wanted to welcome Pamela back. “Come to
Delhi and stand for parliament; the youth of the north are all for you.” But, surely,
Pamela, I said, you could not stand for Indian elections with a French passport?
“Oh,” said Pamela, “I could have dual nationality. [India does not allow it.] These
things can be arranged.”

It was after this call that Pamela finally decided to jettison her incognito image.
Oberoi was told she would now be registered under her own name, caOs no
longer had to be routed through my room and, instead of us ringing stars and
finding their secretaries, stars now rang to talk to Pamela.

Even actors, who had ignored her, or treated her with indifference, rang to invite
her back to their homes. The day before Behram had run his story, Pamela had
photographed the actor known as Jeetendra. Both Pamela and I knew this was very
far from the star we were looking for but, at the time, with so few real stars available,
we had little choice. Jeetendra’s great period had come a decade earlier when he
played the all-action fighting, singing, dancing Hindi film hero with such conviction
that he was given the nickname Jumping Jack. As if to make sure his screen image
matched his real life, he had wooed his wife by pelting her with peanuts. But his
last great film had been in 1980 and, although he was sriU making films, he was very
much the aging star who just refused to accept his time had gone.

Jeetendra had agreed to see us after many phone calls. When we arrived, he
kept us waiting for hours and, far from wanting to jump, let alone throw peanuts
at us, was so disinterested that we were left to search for crumbs while he took
more interest in the Test match India were then playing in Australia, where a
young Sachin Tendulkar was creating waves. His indifference to the questions I
was putting to him or the pictures Pamela was taking was such that, as we drove
back, both Pamela and I agreed we could do little with the interview; also, the
photographs had not come out at all well.

Now, with Pamela no longer incognito, Jeetendra rang personally to speak
to Pamela and invited her back to his house. Pamela felt so secure that she did
not need me to accompany her. Later, she returned to describe to me how he
not only knew exacdy who she was and what she had done but even took her
to his special bar room, with its amazing collection of bottles. The incognito
photographer, a star of another world, had conquered a BoUywood star, albeit
ageing.

Bollywood: A History

Two weeks earlier, Pamela had been fearful of flying in alone to Bombay; now,
as I flew back to London, she came to see me off at the airport, quite happy to be
seen in public. Just before I boarded my flight she told me she was on her way to
the Holiday Inn not far from the airport. There, by the swimming pool, Subhas
Ghai, one of BoUywood’s great directors and the man portrayed in the Bombay
film media as the Oliver Stone of Bollywood, was having his birthday party. Ghia
had personally rung to invite Pamela, and Pamela could not wait to get there.

As it happens, Pamela never made it in Bollywood; probably she did not
want to and, back in London, Nick Gordon decided that the story of Pamela in
Bollywood, and how the stars reacted to her, was much more interesting than
the stars whose lifestyles I had been sent to chronicle.

I ended up writing the most extraordinary story I have ever written, not
about the Bollywood stars but about the photographer who was supposed to
merely take the pictures to illustrate my piece. The stars of Bollywood had
at most a walk-on part, completely overshadowed by Pamela. And while the
magazine used some of Pamela’s pictures, the most arresting were the ones that
the Bombay photographers had taken of Pamela at work.

You magazine put it on its cover. It was dominated by a picture of Pamela
holding a camera, the Taj Mahal in the background, and an unknown starlet
dressed in a sari exposing her thighs. The cover lines read: Pamela’s Latest
Exposures—Heat and Lust in Bombay.

It is a measure of how far Bollywood has come in the last decade and a half that
it no longer needs to be introduced to a Western audience through such curious
means. There are Bollywood movies in many a video shop across Britain and
the United States; walk into a High street music or DVD store and along with
sections on various Hollywood movies there is a small, but distinctly marked,
section for Bollywood films; the very term Bollywood is, if not universally
known, certainly known to many, and the idea that India is the movie capital
of the world strikes nobody as ridiculous or one requiring much explanation.
Not long ago one of Bollywood’s biggest stars, Aishwarya Rai, was interviewed
by CBS for sixty minutes without the channel feeling any need to explain the
reasons or dress it up with another story. She was a story in her own right.

The sheer might of Bollywood is now impossible to ignore. Every year the
Indian film industry produces more than a i ,000 feature films, every day fourteen
million see a movie in the country, a billion more people a year buy tickets to
Indian movies than they do to Hollywood ones. What is more, while Hollywood
IS no longer growing, the Indian numbers are likely to grow. India’s population,
already more than a billion wfll, in the next decade, surpass China’s, making it
the most populous country in the world. But India is far behind in the number
of theatres needed for such a film- hungry people. The country’s 13,000 theatres
means thirteen screens per million of the population, the lowest screen average
in the world. And unlike the West, most of these screens are single screen theatres.

Prologue

In the years to come, as India takes to multi-screens, this will change, bringing
more people to the cinema.

It is not merely in numbers that Bollywood has trounced Hollywood.
Bollywood is the first and only instance of a non-Western society taking a
Western product and so changing it that it can now claim to have created a
new genre, one that reaches audiences that the original cannot. Suketu Mehta in
Maximum City, his brilliant biography of Bombay, writes:

India is one of the few territories in which Hollywood has been unable to make
more than a dent: Hollywood films make up barely 5 % of the country’s market.
Resourceful saboteurs, the Hindi movie-makers. When every other country’s
cinema had fallen before Hollywood, India met Hollywood the Hindu way. It
welcomed it, swallowed it whole and regurgitated it. What went in, blended with
everything that had existed before, and came back out with ten new heads.

I had a glimpse of one of these heads when, in the summer of 2004 ,1 found
myself in Marrakech. Morocco was bidding for the soccer World Cup. The
Moroccan bid was led by foreigners—American, French, and English—so much
so that it did not feel Moroccan at all. It was as if, in its desire to get this prestigious
event, the country had leased its name to foreigners. I knew that something like
this had happened many years earlier when the world had been captivated by
Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in the classic film, Casablanca. Bogart
portrayed Rick, who ran a cafe called Rick’s Cafe in Casablanca, but the film had
nothing to do with Casablanca, the city, as it was shot on a parking lot at MGM
studios in Los Angeles, and the actors never went anywhere near Morocco. When
I visited Casablanca, the hotel I stayed in did have a bar called Rick’s Cafe but
that was an attempt by Casablanca, the city, to import something Hollywood
had invented and the only connection with the movie was the television in the
corner of the bar, endlessly showing the original film. Morocco, I sensed, could
lend its name to other cultures but never really accept something foreign.

It was as I was pondering this question, sitting on a terrace overlooking the
main square in Marrakech, that something happened to make me realise the
power of Bollywood and how much more potent it could be in many cultures
compared to Hollywood.

The sun had just begun to set; in the distance we could see the sand dunes that
surround the city bathed in the golden light of the dying sun then, magically,
as the lamps were lit, the hitherto empty square began to fill up with food stalls
converting what had been fairly pedestrian, into something from the Arabian
Nights. In the midst of all this, a man trundled into the square, carrying a cinema
poster on a trolley As he did so, unveiled young girls, reflecting the relaxed Islam

of Morocco, rushed to gather round it. My first thought was that, in this very
Moroccan setting, it was a film poster of a local movie or perhaps a Hollywood

Bollywood: A History

movie. But when I got close, I discovered it was a Bollywood movie starring
Shah Rukh Khan, one of the biggest stars of Bollywood. These unveiled young
girls were drooling over an Indian actor m the way they would never have done
over a Hollywood one.

When I returned to London, this remarkable ability of Bollywood to reach
parts Hollywood never did, was emphasised when our new cleaning lady, a
woman from Estonia, on seeing me said, “Indian? Ah, Raj Kapoor?”

Raj Kapoor is one of the greatest names of Bollywood, the man who
dominated the Hindi cinema for four decades between the 1940s and the 1970s.
This Estonian girl could remember how, growing up as part of the old Soviet
empire, hoping one day to be free, the family would go to see Indian films, their
mixture of songs, dances, a story-line of families splitting, then finally coming
together, and the boy always getting the girl, appealing in a way Hollywood could
not. It also helped Bollywood that the cold war meant the Soviet Union did not
want Hollywood movies, while Bollywood was the sort of safe entertainment
that the Estonians and others could be exposed to.

Shyam Benegal, one of India’s most original film directors, argues this spread
of Indian films reflects a cultural divide in the world between the Anglo-Saxon
and the non-Anglo-Saxons’ perceptions of films:

The non-Anglo-Saxon finds it very easy to accept this kind of entertainment.

It gets to them more easily. For instance, Latin-Americans: popular Indian cinema
is becoming quite popular in countries like Columbia, Bolivia, Peru, or Central
American countries, such as Honduras, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Venezuela. In the
West Indies, of course, it has always been so, but also in places like North Africa,
where the biggest heroes are from Bollywood. In Egypt, the greatest hero continues
to be Amitabh Bachchan. Raj Kapoor was in the 50s and 60s but he was replaced
by Amitabh. When Amitabh went there as a juror for the Cairo Film Festival a few
years ago, they didn’t know what had hit them. The women and girls would just
descend upon the Hilton Hotel in Cairo. He needed to have armed protection from
all these ladies who would write love-letters with their blood and send them to him.
And yet the fact is they had seen his films not in the cinema but on video cassettes.
Such is the popularity of Indian films that Egypt does not allow Indian films to go
there because it would destroy their industry The Government is very aware that
Egyptians would much prefer to see Indian films than their own films. The same
thing applies to all of North Africa. In the fifties, Indian films went to Russia, and
also to the Middle East, the Mediterranean and to Latin America, replacing films
from other countries. In West Africa, French films were replaced by American films,
and now Indian films are replacing American films.

So why have Anglo-Saxon countries until recently found Bollywood a strange
product?

Prologue

That may have to do with the attitude that is deeply embedded there.The problem
has always been with the Anglo-Saxons.

Is it due to racism there?

I think so. They don’t easily identify with people who are coloured. They can’t
empathise. Sympathy, yes. Sympathy, pity, yes, but they find it difficult to empathise.

It’s one of those things. European history has been like that. Anglo-Saxon history
has been like that over a period of time, so it is a bit difficult for them immediately
to take on something like this. People always ask me why it is that Indian films don’t
win Oscars?You see, because so far Indian films have always been seen as a somewhat
deprived, poor cousin of Hollywood. Yet our markets are equally large, as large as
those of Hollywood. We are the only two national cinemas that are comparable to
one another. No other country in the world produces such a large number of films
or caters to such a large audience. But the Indian audience, because we have such a
huge population, in the past did not necessarily have to rely on an audience outside
of its own nation. Now we do, because we also have a large South Asian population
in different parts of world who like the kind of entertainment that India produces.

It is a preferred form of entertainment for them because they feel with it. So it
doesn’t matter. I might be living in south America and I should be seeing Chile and
Argentinean cinema, but I might prefer to see an Indian film, which is happening
everywhere in the world, and also local people are attracted to it.

Bollywood not only entertains diverse cultures but, just as Hollywood has
done, it inspires people from different backgrounds to dream of becoming film¬
makers. Benegal recalls meeting an Ethiopian film-maker, who now teaches in
America and makes films, telling him how Mother India made him want to
became a film director:

Haile Gerima told me that if there was one film that influenced him to the extent
that he wanted to become a film-maker it was the film Mother India. In Ethiopia, he
said, they would view films every month; his grandmother would gather her whole
group, children and grandchildren, and they would all go to see Mother India. The
story of the mother, and then the mother killing the son, and then the dam coming
up, which somehow e.xpressed the deepest needs and aspirations of Indian people,
had a message not only for Indian people but for people from outside India like
Haile and his fellow Ethiopians.

Yet this worldwide spread of Bollywood has come despite the fact that India has,
historically, never had a world empire. A country’s culture spreads largely through
the success of its arms. Americans may proudly boast that they have never had
imperial ambitions hke the Europeans, although they did acquire the old Spanish

Bollywood: A History

Prologue

empire. But India is that rare country whose troops have never left the country to
seek Indian dominions abroad. For two hundred years its troops fought under the
Union Jack to acquire and preserve the British Empire but not to seek an Indian
empire. Even more crucially for aU the economic progress being made by India, it
remains outside the cultural system the rest of the world accepts.

Consider the two basic things that visitors to any country have to take into
account the moment they arrive: local time and local money.

For a visitor, working out how much his money can buy locally, it is fairly
simple arithmetic: you either multiply the currency you are carrying or you
divide it by a number.

But in India you have to learn a whole new number system.

Indians do not count in millions'and billions. Instead they have their own
unique system called lakhs and crores. So, Indians talk of a business making profits
of tens of crores of rupees or of a car costing four lakhs of rupees. To understand
what they mean you must know that a lakh is 100,000, a crore is ten million.

Even when Indians take to Western things, which they love to do, they make
them sound very Indian and wholly unintelligible to the rest of the world. So
India has taken to the popular television game How to be a Millionaire, presented
by Amitabh Bachchan. Except, in India, it is called How to be a Crorepathi.
Call an Indian a millionaire and it will make no impression on him; call him a
crorepati, a man with ten million rupees, and he will puff up with pride.

Time presents the visitor with another very Indian situation.

It is fascinating to examine the time at any given moment in the various cities
of the world. As you would expect, the hour hand in each city shows a different
time, but the minute hand always shows the same time, round the world.

So, 12.33 in London is 7.33 am in New York, 4.33 am in Los Angeles and
8.33 pm in Tokyo. Only the clock in Delhi stands apart from the world. 12.33
am in London is 6.03 pm in Delhi. India is the only country in the world which
measures the time difference with the rest of the world in half hours. Indian
standard time is ^Vi hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, lo'/i hours ahead of
US East Coast time, and 13 hours ahead of Pacific Standard Time

When I was a child in India, I was told by an uncle how easy it was to know
the time in London. Just take your wrist watch and turn it round, reversing the
minute and hour hands: that will give you the time in London. I know of no
other country which has such an upside-down relation with world time.

Let us now see how Bollywood has successfully inverted Hollywood. The
basic elements of a Hollywood movie are well-known and well-established.
There is generally a book or a play which a director is keen to make into a film,
a script is commissioned, funding is found, then actors and actresses are cast and
the whole film is shot according to a strict timetable.

Bollywood completely reverses the procedure. The script is almost the last
thing that is written; often the script is being written as the actors and actresses

are on the set getting ready to shoot and the words can often be given to them
just before the scene is shot. In Bollywood, the starting point is the telling of the
story to the male star whose agreement will make or break the film.

The director who wants to make the movie comes to a star and verbally enacts
the story in front of him. If he gets the star he knows he can, on the basis of his
name, secure funding, usually from privately-held, family- controlled production
companies, to make the movie.

Even in Lagaan, the Bollywood movie based on a nineteenth century cricket
match between Indians and the English, a parable of the story of empire, race and
love, which was seen as the first cross-over movie, one that could appeal to Anglo-
Saxon audiences and was nominated for Hollywood’s Foreign Movie Oscar, this
pattern did not change. One Sunday afternoon in Bombay, the director came to
the Bombay home of the actor Aamir Khan, performed the story in front of him,
convinced him, and then used his name to finance and make the movie.

The mechanics of making a movie in Bollywood is also very different. Unhke
Hollywood, Bollywood does not believe in sync sound. In a Hollywood movie,
both the action and the words are shot together. But in Bollywood, as a scene is
shot the actors and actresses mouth the words they have been given, but it does not
matter what they say or that there is terrific noise all around. Later on, in a studio,
they will record the words and this will be superimposed on the film. Just as the
various songs sung in the film are never sung by the stars, but by what are called
playback singers, with the on-screen stars merely mouthing the words.

There was a time, in the 1930s, when Bollywood movies were like Hollywood
movies. But just as the coming of sound totally transformed Hollywood, it also
made Bollywood take a road very different to Hollywood. Senegal has no doubts
the coming of sound produced the divorce between these movie cultures:

During the silent era of Indian cinema our films used to look like every other
film made everywhere else in the world. But the moment sound came we suddenly
went back to our theatrical traditional form. That was the moment, 1931, when our
first sound film was made, Alam Ara, which had something like thirty songs, and
after that movies started having sixteen or seventeen songs, and most films from
then on used to have a huge number of songs, because music was an essential part
of Indian cinema.

This change also reflected something very deep in Indian thinking, the very
different way Indians see drama, comedy, musical. Indians say the West follows a
fascist system of thought, which divides various artistic expressions into separate,
watertight compartments. India mixes them all together, rather like the Indian
dish kicheree where everything from rice through pulses to eggs, vegetables and
spices, are all thrown into a pot to make a delicious meal So it was with films.
Here is Benegal again:

Bollywood: A History

The West broke up everything: they said, this is drama; they said, this is comedy;
they said, this is tragedy. Our films mix everything in one. The same film has
everything in it, much like our food, because otherwise we don’t feel satisfied. It
must have everything. That’s traditional. Popular cinema foDows that tradition. For
Indian films, for their very sustenance, songs were very important. But that is because
for any kind of Indian entertainment, particularly community entertainment, songs
are important. In any Indian performance before a large number of people, theatrical
performance or film or whatever, music and song are essential components. But
songs in an Indian film does not make it a musical. A Western musical actually takes
a story forward. In Indian films songs may sometimes interrupt, sometimes they are
part of the story. It’s a variable, but the whole thing is that they are interludes. They
are not musicals in the Western sense. Not at all.This is why it is a different tradition
of cinema compared to the Western tradition. They make the audience cry, they
make the audience laugh, they make the audience enjoy the song, make their feet
tap to the dances; all those kinds of things and ah in one movie.

Twenty years after the coming of sound there was another big change in
Bollywood. Until the 1940s and even 1950s, Bollywood movies had scripts in the
style that Hollywood would have recognised. Some of India’s great film directors
worked to scripts, tightly-written scripts, often from plays or novels. Benegal says:

There was a time in India—it was an interim period—when films were made to
a script. Films in the early 40s and 50s were made to a script. No Bimal Roy films,
no Mehboob film, no Guru Dutt films were made on the spur of the moment. They
all had written scripts. Some time, from the 60s onwards, what happened was that
everybody starting to make films asked what was a valuable property? Now, this sort
of thing is done in cinemas all over the world. But here it was a star who was treated
as the valuable property. If you have a big star, it means that your risk level has come
down. Similarly, a film music director’s star value reduces the risk factor; you can pre¬
sell your film for a much higher price. So you create a package of people and you
make this package of people even before you have thought of what the subject would
be.This started in the late to mid-sixties. And it remained that way for a long period.

The divide between Hollywood and Bollywood is further deepened by the
very different ways these two movie cultures finance their films. Hollywood
studios are owned by some of the great corporations of the world; Sony,
Time Warner, News Corp, Viacom. Even when independent film producers
emerge, such as Steven Spielberg, they end up selling out to huge corporations,
as Spielberg did with DreamWorks.

There is no similar studio system in Bollywood and big Indian corporations
have historically shied away from the film industry. That is slowly changing but it
is still light years removed from the ownership of Hollywood studios. Investment

Prologue

in Bollywood movies is stiU done by small family firms, as if this huge movie
industry was in reality a cottage industry.

There are Bollywood directors who buck this trend. Benegal himself is one
of them. His most recent film was a biographical study of the Indian nationalist,
Subhas Bose, a highly controversial subject in India, working to a script which
was massively researched and financed by Sahara, a major Indian company. But
while Benegal is part of modern Bollywood, he represents a distinct minority: a
movie-maker who does not make art-house movies that appeal only to a very
small intellectual group but which have a much wider clientele, but yet is very
different from the Bollywood blockbusters, with a very firm narrative tradition
of telhng a story, and telling it well and entertainingly.

The emergence of Benegal and other film directors in the 70s also helped
Bollywood bridge a gap that was both curious and quite amazing. This was
that through much of the immediate independent years, while Bollywood
was colonising many parts of the world, creating huge fan bases in the Soviet
Union and the Middle East, it could not colonise its own Indian intellectuals,
not even the "Western-educated Indian elite. They shunned Bollywood movies
and, indeed, the best cinema houses in the major Indian cities never screened
Bollywood movies. These cinemas were reserved for Western movies which
were considered the real thing, Bollywood movies were despised as the movies
necessary to keep the illiterate masses amused and hopefully out of trouble.
So, in the Bombay of my youth, the major cinemas of south Bombay, which
is the commercial centre of Bombay, where the courts, banks, business houses,
art galleries, museums and newspaper offices are located, and whose cinemas,
such as Regal, Eros, Metro, New Empire, and Excelsior, are considered the
most prestigious in the city, never showed Hindi films. To see a Hindi film you
generally had to travel far away from south Bombay to places like Grant Road
and other less fashionable places.

Our contempt for Bollywood was matched by our contempt for those who
could not speak English. In the Bombay school I went to in the 50s and 60s,
the Jesuit-run St. Xavier’s, whose most high profile pupil was the great Indian
cricketer Sunil Gavaksar, we grew up with utter disdain for the Hindi film
industry and aU it represented. We considered ourselves part of the elite that
spoke Enghsh; we used to cruelly mock those who could not speak English
properly. They spoke what we called the vernacular and it was not meant as a
comphment. Many of them were Gujeratis (people from Gujarat who were then
part of the state of Bombay) and we would mock them as Gujubhais, brother
Gujeratis, but with no brotherly feeling for them. Hindi movies were for them
as they could not speak Enghsh very well, while we went to Hollywood movies
and, in particular, loved to go to Sunday morning shows, which showed some of
the older Hollywood classics.

Benegal says;

Bollywood: A History

ProloguB

Well, in those days it was not considered to be entertainment worthy ofWestern-
educated people. For this litde section of Metropolitan Indian society, it was not
considered a kind of entertainment that they would like to be associated with. It
was considered not right. But that started to change in the 1980s and 1990s. The
change was for two reasons. One was there was a certain technical competency that
started to come into the popular cinema which didn’t quite exist earher. Secondly,

I think it even more important that a lot of work started to be done by people like
the sociologist Ashish Nandy and a whole lot of people started to study popular
Indian cinema, which had never been done before. They started to examine how is
that the most popular entertainment medium like the cinema is popular, despite the
fact that the people who are educated and Westernised consider these films so naive
and so devoid of any kind of serious intelligence that they will not go to watch it.
But the fact of the matter was that it could hold so many people engrossed—so how
could this kind of cinema do it? With the intellectuals doing this analysing some of
the Western elite began to consider this medium.

It also helped that other factors worked against Hollywood movies in India
and deprived the Indian Western educated elite of their traditional cinematic
sustenance. In the late 70s, Mrs Gandhi s regime tried to limit Hollywood movies
and there were also foreign exchange restrictions, with the result that cinema
houses in the major metropolitan cities, which had traditionally shown Western
movies, had to fill their blank screens with Bollywood movies. Benegal and
directors like him, part of what was called parallel cinema, benefited, and their
movies filled screens and introduced Bollywood to audiences that in the past had
only seen a Western film. The result was the generation that came after us no
longer felt any shame in going to a Hindi film in the way that we had.

Benegal dates this change from the 80s and says:

The clientele that missed seeing Western films, now started to see these films.

So that became a market for what today we call parallel cinema, alternate cinema,
whatever. But while popular cinema itself continued in its own merry way, there was
I think a major impact on it with technological advances—sounds getting better,
and the whole business of block-busters and television conung in. So the popular
cinema had to suddenly compete with all these things and improve their product,
their presentation. They could no longer make the kind of films they were making.
They had to approach it differently, but they didn’t make a different approach in
their content. Content remained the same. But the look, the character, all these kind
of things changed. When intelligent people like intellectuals, started to analyse those
things and started to see a great deal of sense in them, that’s when this group started
to become the audience for the Bollywood film. There are other reasons as well. It
helped that our cinema houses physically got better; our cinemas used to be like
dumps—for years. Now they were no longer quite that bad.

But despite all this, one thing remains constant for Bollywood. The writer and
novehst Faroukh Dhondy has written:

Bollywood is formula. In the beginning was the formula and the formula was with
nationalism and just nationalism. Film inherited the magnificent task of becoming
the discernible conscience of the nation. It was the defining medium of what it
meant to be Indian. Film, trading in images and icons, was the perfect medium for
India. There were subtleties and layers, but the final distillate of good and evil, the
boiled-down manifestation of how to pursue being the Indian male or the Indian
female became the pursuit and message of Indian cinema. More concretely, the
Indian father, mother, daughter, son, husband or wife, became the media’s constructs.
They evolved, but not even at the speed, say, at which man came from monkey.The
social tenets of nationalism went hand in hand with the cultural ones. Ours was
the greatest spiritual nation in the world. We could teach the world moral lessons
which lesser breeds and shallower cultures were incapable of. Our myths and epics,
pervasive in our population, would be embodied in film and become matters of
national pride. All these elements were at first, 1 believe, a conscious and concerted
revival aimed at proving to the world and perhaps necessarily, and most importantly,
to ourselves that the British must go and that their exit would enable the flowering
of our own pride. It was perhaps an ignorant way of national self-evaluation, but
it served the purpose of de-colonisation. The dominant liberal tendencies of the
time, led by Gandhi and Nehru, prescribed or perhaps just suggested the mores
of our cultural output. Could anyone then, or now, imagine a film in which the
conquests of Ala-ud-din Khilji or Emperor Akbar’s campaign against the Rajputs
were truthfully portrayed? It would be deemed unhelpful. It would go against the
tenor of’the project’. It may even arouse antagonistic sentiments between Hindus
and Mushms and result in the mindless slaughter of innocents—the result of off-
message films. Throughout its history, the liberal industry of film has subscribed to
the message. There have been instances of direct political censorship, but no single
incident of suppression as in a fatwa against a film. There are in existence guidelines
that ban invective against religion and caste, but these are almost unnecessary
strictures. The tellers of film tales contrive them in ways that make such censorship
unnecessary. The rules are used to filter out allusions that may be construed as
wounding to religious sentiment or insults to castes.

If this emphasises how very differently Hollywood treats controversial subjects
then, as Dhondy says, the aU-important difference between the two movie
cultures lies in their very contrasting inspirational sources:

The tradition of Indian films, unlike those of the West, descends direcdy from
the Indian epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. To say this is to say much
more than the facile and oft-repeated nonsense that there are only so many plots

Bollywood: A History

in the world and all stories are variants of these. Sometimes the paradigm is eight
plots, sometimes a hundred and something. Nevertheless, Indian film heroes,
heroines and villains are defined by the dramatic rasas, the energies that, according
to the Natyasastra, are the constituents of all character and the origins of all drama.
There is a sense in which all film is the assertion of myth. The construction of the
myth of cattle-farm workers as ‘cowboys’, is perhaps the most startling. American
culture has created other equally powerful myths—the irrepressible underdog, the
unhappy but kind hooker, the cats and mice in perpetual antagonistic motion, a

play in which each is flattened and annihilated and still lives to fight on.America

created the Invisible men, the Spidermen, the Supermen, the Batmen, the men who
flew like birds, had X-ray vision, spun webs of rope and policed the precincts of
their crime-ridden cities.These new myths had one characteristic: there was always
an explanation for the new-myth hero’s abilities. Superman, for instance, derived
his powers from the low gravity of the planet Krypton from whence he came.
Batman was in fact a millionaire with a dramatic history. Batman and Superman
are explained; Hanuman (the monkey god) accepted (in India) as an article of faith.
Different eras, different degrees of development, a different approach.The Americans
don’t make ‘mythologicals ’, their entire cinema is their mythological, just as they
don’t imitate the Classics and Romantics. Jazz is their classical music. America,
having generated the culture of rapid capitalistic advance and consumer-oriented
technology, naturally gave the world the myth of technological advance. It found
and finds its expression in the science fiction films, which use these very advances in
technology to create the film’s special effects. Computers become characters, robots
threaten humanity, new dimensions are envisaged and new worlds literally pictured
and put into conflict.

Let us now see how Bollywood began.

Part

In Step with the World

The Creators

Modern India has always been haunted by the thought that it gets Western
inventions late, long after the West has moved on to better and more advanced
things. E.M. Forster’s novel, A Passage to India, ends with the main English
character, Henry Fielding, taunting the main Indian one, Aziz, about India’s
desire to be an independent country. Fielding snorts, “India a nation. What an
apotheosis. Last comer to the drab nineteenth-century sisterhood. Waddling in
at this hour of the world to take her seat. She, whose only peer was the Holy
Roman Empire, she shall rank with Guatemala and Belgium perhaps.”

Yet, cinema has been different. It came to India less than seven months after the
first film was shown in Paris. Cinema was born on 28 December 1895 and, as luck
would have it, India’s name was associated with the birth of film. The venue the
Lumiere brothers, Auguste and Louis, chose to show their short programme was
the Salon Indien, located in the basement of the Grand Cafe at 14, Boulevard des
Capucines in Paris. The organisers had gone to great lengths to make the venue
look Indian, with the lavish basement hall decorated with sumptuous Oriental
rugs. But there was so little confidence that this new invention would catch on
that the owner of Salon Indien, Mr Volpini, refused an offer of 20% of the takings,
preferring instead to charge the Lumiere brothers thirty francs a day. Despite a man
standing outside the building, handing out posters all day, and the cost of the show
pegged to a franc, only thirty-three paid customers were attracted. It was a cold
day in Paris and that may have put people off, but the fact is, the majority of the
hundred who filled the basement seats did not pay for the privilege.

Nor was the beginning particularly encouraging. As the fights dimmed and a
photographic projection depicted the doors of the Lumieres’ photographic factory
at Lyon, a murmur of disappointment went round the room: “Why, it is only the old
Magic Lantern.” But then they saw a new magic on the white backdrop: moving
pictures. The gates opened, workers rushed out, followed by dogs and, suddenly, a
whole new world began to emerge. One scene called ‘Condefiers’ Square’, which
showed a moving hansom cab, was so realistic that a woman in the audience jumped

The Creators

to her feet as the picture of the hansom cab moved nearer and she had the impression
it would rush at her through the screen. ‘Baby’s Dirmer’, showing Auguste and his
wife feeding their infant daughter, also made an impression, in particular with the
swaying trees in the background, which made the audience feel they could hear the
rustling of the leaves. In all, ten different scenes, with each reel seventeen metres in
length, were shown. As the show ended, and the fights came on, the audience broke
into cheers. Slow as the first day’s taking had been, the shows quickly caught on and
soon the brothers were making 2,000 fiancs a day. Salon Indien had got a hit.

The brothers were keen to advertise their products and quickly sent films and
projections far and wide to every continent. The result was that on 7 July, 1896,
the same day the new invention was being shown to the Tsar of Russia in St
Petersburg, Bombay enjoyed the experiences that had first alarmed, and then so
thrilled, the Paris audience.

India had to thank geography for this. Maurice Sestier, the Lumieres’s man,
was on his way to Australia and had to stop over in Bombay. Nevertheless, it
meant that when it came to the cinema, India was part of a global phenomenon
right from the beginning and did not come waddling in late, long after it was
old news in the West. Contrast this with other nineteenth century inventions: the
typewriter and the automobile. Both came to India for the first time the same
year as the cinema, but the patent for the typewriter had been granted thirty
years earlier, and the car had been in existence for more than a decade in the
West before the first one was seen in Bombay.

On that June morning in 1896, TheTimes of India , then a British-owned paper
in Bombay, had carried an advertisement asking Bombay residents to witness
“the marvel of the century, the wonder of the world” at Watson’s Hotel. There
would, said the paper, be four showings of "cinematographe,” living photographic
pictures in lifestyle reproductions at 6,7, 9 and 10 pm.

Watson’s was the ideal place to display this new invention representing, as it
did, aU that was chic and exclusive in British Bombay. The building itself had
been the first iron-framed building in the city, made of cast-iron pillars and tiers
of wrought-iron galleries, which had moved Mark Twain, whp had stayed there
during his visit to the city, to describe it as “something like a huge birdcage...
risen like an exhalation from the earth.” The hotel was then the best hotel in
Bombay and, like many of the best British clubs and hotels in the Raj, not open
to Indians. The story in Bombay was that the hotel had a sign saying Indians
and dogs not allowed and Jamshetji Nusserwanji Tata, the founder of the great
Tata industrial empire of India, had been turned away from Watson’s because
of the colour of his skin. He reacted by building the Taj and putting up a sign
saying British and cats not allowed. The story of racial discrimination may have
been embeUished in the endless retelling, perhaps even apocryphal, although it
illustrated how the Indians responded to the undoubted racism and belief in
white supremacy that formed such an essential part of the British Raj.

Bollywood; A History

The Creators

The British in India operated, as the Indian writer Nirad Chaudhuri has said,
an apartheid system. Watson’s was located on the Esplanade, that part of Bombay
which was European in conception, and where the British had their homes and
their businesses, and where Indians were allowed on sufferance. Within walking
distance was the Bombay Gymkhana, an English club where the British went to
relax and play sports and which did not allow Indians as members. But thirty-
eight years after Watson’s showed the first film in India, the Bombay Gymkhana
would be the venue for the first ever cricket Test match between India and
England, seating Indian spectators in special tents and marquees. It would take
the Gymkhana another thirty years, long after Indian independence, to open its
club-house to the Indians. The apartheid the British practised in India could
never be as total and as monolithic as that imposed by whites in South Africa or
in the southern states of America. If it made Indians feel inferior in their own
land, it also had cracks through which Western ideas and recreations could seep
through. In the 1930s, it meant cricket Tests between India and England, at a time
when the blacks in America could not play baseball with their fellow whites. It
was fourteen years later, in 1947, the year of Indian independence, that Jackie
Robinson became the first black man to play major league baseball and the so-
called invisible Negro leagues, which had catered for blacks, slowly disappeared.
In 1896, the cracks in British apartheid brought film to India.

That evening at Watson’s, the audience saw six short films, including the one
that had so astounded the Paris audience—a train coming into the station;
L’Arrivee d’un gare de la Ciotat (The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station). With
a camera held near the track, this showed a train gradually increase in size as it
pulled into the station until the audience thought it would crash through the
screen. It was so realistic that some in that Paris saloon had ducked,while others
had vacated their seats in a hurry.The reaction of the Bombay audience matched
that of the Paris one.

The Bombay Gazette of July 9 described the evening and the effect the films
had on that first night Bombay audience:

The view included the arrival of a crowded train at a railway station with all the
animation and bustle that such an event presents, and the demolition of a wall—a
work so realistic that the dust is seen to ascend in volumes when the wall finally
totters and falls. The Sea Bath is another very good scene: the dashing of waves
upon the beach, and the antics of the boy bathers, both being very realistic. But this
is beaten by Leaving the Factory, which brings a whole crowd of moving humanity
onto the canvas and is, without doubt, the most realistic scene of all. Ladies and
Solders on Wheeb is a very vivid representation of the cycling craze, as can be seen
any day in Hyde Park. No one who takes an interest in the march of science should
allow the opportunity to pass that now presents itself to see the cinematograph, an
invention which is attracting a great deal of attention at home.

Cinema, as the critic Amita Malik has written, could not have arrived at a
better time for India. It was the turn of the century, there were urban masses
eager for mass entertainment and the cinema with its direct visual impact,
easy accessibility and its relatively straightforward themes seemed “the natural
answer.”

The screenings at Watson’s generated enough excitement for more showings
and these began a week later, on 14 July, at Novelty Theatre, which had a larger
seating capacity. It was meant to be for three days but growing public interest
meant the screenings continued for several weeks, with the shows regularly
advertised in The Times of India and receiving good reviews. The programme was
also increased from twelve to twenty-four films. The fa9ade of the theatre was
floodlit and under the direction of the organist at St John’s Church in Colaba, a
certain E Seymour Dove, a “selection of suitable music” was provided.

Novelty sought to attract Indians by catering to both the prevailing social customs,
a feature of which was lack of emancipation for women, and their capacity to pay.
By the end of July, the cinema advertised “Reserved boxes for the Purdah ladies and
their famihes” and they even had zenna shows where the cinema was open only to
women. They also offered a broad scale of prices. The first screening had a single
admission price but, by the end of the month, prices ranged from a low of four annas
(25 paise, about .02 of a penny) to a high of two rupees (about I5p).

The Indians the British exhibitors hoped to attract in the main were the
Parsis.They had fled to India around the eighth century AD, after the fall of the
pre-Persian Sassanian Empire to the conquering Muslims, arriving by ship to
the Western coast of the Indian sub-continent (now Gujarat) to maintain their
> Zoroastrian religious tradition. The Parsis tell a charming story of how they

got asylum in India, one that has lessons for immigration controllers the world
over. According to this old Parsi legend, the Raja of Sanjan, the local Hindu
king, had given them a cup full to the nm of milk, symbolically stating that the
kingdom was already full of people and could not take any refugees. The asylum
seekers sweetened the milk with sugar and gave it back to the king, symbolically
stating that they would be of immeasurable service to the kingdom and become
exemplary subjects of the Raja. The Raja allowed them to keep their customs
and traditions, provided they did not try to proselytise, and this Hindu tolerance
proved so successful that, although they had lived in India for centuries, they
never really lost their identity, or became submerged into the majority Hindu
community. Their custom of fire worship was even adopted by Akbar, the
greatest of India’s Mughal Emperors. When the European traders started arriving
in the sixteenth century, they found the Parsis willing collaborators; by the time
the British became masters of India in the eighteenth century, the Parsis were
the ideal middle men, both in commerce and the social field. Despite having
lived in India for 1200 years they portrayed themselves as interlopers and sought
common cause with the latest interlopers, the British. Even today, the Indians

Bollywood: A History

talk about the Parsi love for the British and a popular joke is about the Parsi
matron referring to “our Queen” but “your President”

It was the Parsis who were to pioneer both industrial development and cricket
in India, but a month into the showing of the Lumiere films, on 5 August 1896, The
Times of India felt sufficiendy concerned about lack of Parsi zeal for film shows to
write an editorial rebuking “our Parsi friends” for not taking greater interest in this
new medium. It appears that despite the four anna tickets and the attention to purdah
ladies, it was mainly the British in Bombay who turned up for the screenings.

The Times of India was being hasty in its judgment. The Parsis would take to
films and were some of the early pioneers of the industry but, initially, it was a
member of the majority Hindu community who showed the greatest enthusiasm
for this new medium. He was a Maharashtrian called Harischandra Sakharam
Bhatvadekar, also known as Save Dada. Dada means older brother and is a term
of respect. Photographs of him, taken when he was well into his old age, show a
man sporting a circular turban denoting his high Brahmanical caste, a large tilak
mark on his forehead and his gaunt, skinny, hollow-cheeked face lit up with
wonderful luminous eyes which shone through his horn-rimmed glasses. These
eyes had been dazzled by the screenings of the Lumiere brothers at Novelty
and the shrewd businessman in him quickly saw the potential. He was already a
professional still-photographer and was so taken by this new invention that he
ordered a motion picture camera from London at a price of twenty-one guineas.
This was, probably, the first such imported equipment to arrive in the country.

His first use of this camera was to photograph a fight between two famous
wrestlers, Pundalik Dada and Krishna Nahvi, at Bombay’s Hanging Gardens,
which he then sent to London for processing. Meanwhile, he had also brought
a projector and become an open air exhibitor of imported films, showing them
in a tent cinema he owned. From the beginning, Bhatvadekar realised that only
Indian films would not attract audiences, so he exhibited his wrestler’s film, along
with some imported ones. He kept to this formula for many shows, mixing
imported shorts* with a film that focused on the training of circus monkeys and
another on the fire temples of the Parsis.

In 1901, he filmed the arrival back in India of Sir Mancheqee Bhownaggree,
the second Indian to be elected to the House of Commons, and the first from the
Conservative party. Bhownaggree had just been re-elected to the House, having
first won election in the 1895 election.That election had also seen the defeat of
the first Indian ever to be elected to the House—Dadabhai Naoroji. Both men
were Parsis but, although they were members of different British political parties,
Naoroji being a Liberal, Bhownaggree a Conservative, both were racially targeted
in a similar fashion from opposite ends of the British political spectrum. When
Naoroji, a Liberal, became the first Indian to stand for the British ParUament,
the Marquis of Sahsbury, the then Conservative Prime Minister, had said he did
not think “a British constituency will take a black man.” He was proved wrong.

The Creators

After the 1895 election, Bhownaggree’s defeated Liberal rival, a trade unionist,
complained he had been “kicked out by a black man, a stranger.” Unlike Naoroji,
who in common with many Indian radicals felt more at home with the British
Liberals as the party with more sympathy for Indian aspirations, Bhownaggree,
who was also known as Bow-the Knee, was an ardent collaborator with the Raj,
or as the British put it, “an imperial loyalist.” In 1901, Bhownaggree’s return to
India, soon after his election triumph, was advertised as proof of how well the
British connection worked for the Indians who collaborated with the Raj.

Bhatvadekar’s most important film came the following year when he filmed
the return to India of another famous Indian. Raghunath Paranjpye, an Indian
student in Cambridge, had became a Senior Wrangler, a very special distinction
in mathematics. This was the ideal subject for Bhatvadekar. It filled the Indians
with nationalistic pride for here was proof that, contrary to what their British
conquerors told them, not aU Indians were inferior human beings and some of
them, given the opportunity, could compete with the best of the British. But for
the British, Paranjye’s success was also satisfying; it proved that given time, and
the right education, some of the Indians might become as good as the Europeans,
or at least aspire to be.

Bhatvadekar titled his films simply. His first had been called Wrestler, the monkey
film was called Man and Monkeys, the return to India of the Conservative MP,
Landing of Sir M.M. Bhowmuggre (the difference in spelling indicates how Indian
names are transhterated into English) and the Paranjype film. Sir Wrangler Mr R.P.
Pranjype. His 1903 film, entitled Delhi Durbar of Lord Curzon —Curzon being the
Viceroy—showed the Delhi Durbar held to celebrate the coronation of Edward
VII. It was an exercise in imperial extravaganza, mixing oriental and occidental
splendour, and designed to impress Indians with the power and majesty of the
monarch, whose subjects they were privileged to be.

The subjects Bhatvadekar chose shows the temper of the times. This was the
height of the Empire. Cinema came to India the same year that Winston ChurchOl
arrived in India and just months before Victoria celebrated her Diamond Jubilee.
Indians vied with each other to pay homage to “her Gracious Majesty.”The British
were talking of an Empire that would last a thousand years and promoting it as the
most beneficial form of rule ever devised by man. The British could point to the
peace they had brought to India after many decades of bloodshed and the benefits
they had introduced by outlawing such awful practices as thugee and sutee.Yet
for all the advertised virtues of British rule, the Raj’s pohcies could not prevent
famines, indeed, historians now say the Raj’s pohcies created some of the worst
famines in Indian history. In 1896, just as the cinema came to India, famine in the
Central Provinces killed 150,000. In Sholapur, in western India, a mob of 5,000,
hungry for food, raided bags of grain. The pohce opened fire, kiUing many. The
1896 famine was the first of six long years of famine that proved so devastating that
historians now call it the great holocaust. The Lancet estimated that between 1896

Bollywood: A History

The Creators

and 1902 nineteen million Indians died. 1896 also saw bubonic plague brought to
the country by a ship from China. It swept through Bombay, killing 20,000 people.
Fourteen thousand died of cyclone in Chittagong and thrice that number from
the diseases that followed.

But none of these awful events featured in any of the films that Bhatvadekar,
or others who followed him, made. For, despite the famines, most Indians
accepted British rule and went along with the British projection of their rule
as a benign administration that benefited Indians. Churchill, whose ship docked
at Bombay six months after the first film show at Watsons Hotel, lived in style
in India, voraciously read European history, in particular Gibbon, and while his
many letters home spoke of his need for money, none of them mentioned the
famines and disease that racked the land. He, like many of the British rulers, just
did not see such distress and formed an impression—one that remained with
him all his life and which he would articulate often—that British rule meant that
Indians for the first time could travel in peace and tranquillity from one end of
this vast country to another. Not even the educated Indians, for whom Churchill
would soon develop such hatred, and who were increasingly clamouring for
more say in running their own affairs, wanted to cut the ties with the Empire.
The British Empire, they agreed, was the best thing that could have happened
to India. Today, Naoroji is classified as a nationalist, as against Bhownaggree, the
imperialist, but not even Naoroji demanded freedom for India. That cry was first
heard only some thirty years later. In the closing years of the nineteenth century,
all that even the most radical Indians wanted was that Britain treat her Indian
subjects with fairness and justice and on the same scale as she was treating her
white colonial subjects in Australia and Canada.

Bhatvadekar’s work as a pioneer exhibitor led to him becoming manager of
Bombay’s Gaiety Theatre—later renamed Capitol Cinema. But his career as film¬
maker did not last long. He retired from film-making in 1907 , to concentrate on
exhibitions, living to a ripe old age and by the time he died, with quite a fortune,
in the 1950 S, Indian cinema had come a long way.

Not that Bhatvadekar was alone in pioneering film shows in India. He had a
rival in Bombay: F.B.Thananwala, who was both an engineer and an equipment
dealer. He showed a film about the Muslim Taboot procession and another
claiming “splendid views of Bombay”

A more serious rival for Bhatvadekar emerged in Calcutta, then the capital of
British India and the second city of the Empire after London. This was Hiralal
Sen, who along with his brother, Motilal (their names mean jewels), did enough
to be considered as much of a pioneer of the Indian cinema as Bhatvadekar.
However, so little is known about Hiralal’s work that Indian film historians
cannot even agree on a filmography of films or even on the length of his best
feature film. As so often with Indian history, there is anecdote and conjecture
but litde hard evidence.

The two brothers were sons of a lawyer and born in Bakjuri village in
Manikganj (now Bangladesh). Hiralal, who, like Bhatvadekar, started as a
photographer, saw his first film m Calcutta’s Star Theatre, some time in October
1898 . This was a show presented by Professor Stevenson which included various
items such as Railway Train in Full Motion, Death of Nelson, The Diamond Jubilee
Procession and Mr Gladstone’s Funeral.The film that proved inspirational for Hiralal
was Stevenson’s The Flower of Persia. Hiralal’s first film, with help and equipment
from Stevenson, was based on scenes from The Flower of Persia and was shown
along with Stevenson’s film at the Star. Hiralal, a quick, eager learner, had also
joined the film crew that Pathe of France had sent to India and, borrowing a
camera, went round Calcutta shooting scenes which included bathers in the river
Hoogly, and cockfights. In 1899, he set up the Royal Bioscope in partnership
with Motilal, having got a camera from London and a projector from Warwick
Trading, a British firm in Calcutta.

The Sen brothers’ best work was put on at the Classic theatre run by Amar
Dutta, where they initially showed imported films during intervals between the
stage shows. The theatrical tradition was already strong in Calcutta. Star, where
the first film had been shown, was also the home theatre for Girish Chandra
Ghosh, then one of Bengal’s leading actor-playwrights. Hiralal had the interesting
idea of filming some of the stage shows and such films were shown as added
attractions after the stage performances or during the interval. He advertised
them as “superfine pictures from our world renowned plays.”

Hiralal made only one feature-length film called, Alibaba and the Forty Thieves
but film historians cannot even agree how long the film was. He also, probably,
filmed the first advertisements, one for C.K. Sen’s Jabakusum hair oil, a product
targeted at women and advertised as one that would keep their long, dark hair,
shiny. Hiralal’s advertisement has been lost but the product has continued to sell
in India. He also made an advertisement for Edward’s Tonic, produced by the
well-known north Calcutta drug manufacturers, Batto Kesto Paul.

Hiralal’s films show an interesting mix of homage to the Raj and the first stirrings
of nationalism. So, there was a film about the 1911 visit to India of King George
V and Queen Mary, the tide of which tells us how the subject was covered. The
tide was; Grand Delhi Goronation Durbar and Royal Visit to Gakutta Including Their
Majesties Arrival at Amphitheatre, Arrival at Flowrah, Princep’s Ghat, Visit to Bombay
Mid Exhibition. The film showed Indian kings and princes paying tribute to their
British Lord, the Viceroy s Cup Race in Calcutta, and the fireworks and celebration
to mark the royal visit.This was made in 1912 . But, some years before that, Hiralal
had also made 'The Bengal Partition Film, which chronicled how Curzon’s decision
to partition the province sparked the first nationalist agitation in India. A rival
company, which dominated the silent era of the Indian film industry, and of which
we shall hear more, also made a film on this subject indicating the increasing
competition the Royal Bioscope faced. Hiralal, clearly could not cope and, to add

Bollywood; A History

The Creators

to his problems, just before the Royal collapsed, a fire in its studio destroyed all the
films. Four years after Hiralal made his last film, at the 1913 Hindu Bathing Festival
at Allahabad, he died at the age of fifty-one.

Bombay and Calcutta were not the only places exposed to the new medium:
Madras saw film for the first time in 1900, courtesy of Major Warwick, an
Englishman. It was almost another decade, 1909, before an Indian, Swamikannu
Vincent, a railway draughtsman, obtaining a projector from a visiting Frenchman,
held the first show in the Esplanade grounds.

By this time, many people including quite a few foreign firms, were seeking to
exploit the Indian market. This had started soon after the first showing at Watsons.
In January 1897, Stewart’s Vitograph came to Bombay’s Gaiety Theatre and ran for
about a week. In September, “The Hughes Moto-Photoscope, the latest marvel in
cinematographs” began showing at various locations, including fairgrounds.

The travelling missions from Europe and America were quickly followed
by import of films, projectors and other equipment. Some of the missions also
functioned as sales agents.The equipment purchased was used to make films such
as Poona Races g8 and Train Arriving at Bombay Station. Along with stage dramas,
another genre was the emergence of comics. One week in September 1912
found the Imperial cinema in Bombay showing the God of the Sun, along with
“two screaming comics.”The Alexandra Theatre had a two-hour show, including
“five ripping comics.” The America-India, apparently the first theatre to install
electric fans, offered the Mystery of Edwin Drood, TTie Dance of Shiva and “three
real good bits of fun.”

As was only to expected, many of these early film shows were at theatres,
sometimes as supplements to plays, concerts or performances by magicians.
In Bombay, in 1898, Carl Hertz, “absolutely the world’s greatest conjuror,”
offered film items in colour, along with his magic show. But these events were
overshadowed, at least for the time being, by the eruption of outdoor cinema
shows, in tents or in the open air. The typical film showman from this era was
the photographer-exhibitor. These open air exhibitors would generally equip
themselves with films for two or three programmes. Having exhausted the
possibilities in one location, he moved elsewhere. Showing in parks and empty
lots of big cities soon led to showings in smaller cities and towns and, eventually,
to rural travelling cinemas, which still exist in India.

The greatest of these film exhibitors was undoubtedly AbdulaUy EsoofaUy
(1884-1957). Born in Surat, Gujarat, he started out as a tent showman and
travelled throughout south-east Asia, bringing films to large parts of the Far East
including Burma, Singapore and Indonesia. In 1908, he returned to India and
until 1914, and the outbreak of the First World War, covered most parts of the
country. He travelled light. He had a projector, a screen, that he could fold, a
tent, and a few cans of films—the films were generally between 100 and 200 feet
which EsoofaUy bought at around six pence a foot. Realising he needed music

for his film shows, at every stop he hired a local band. Generally, an AbdulaUy
programme consisted of forty or fifty pictures including gags, comedy, operas,
travel films and sports events. The tent could accommodate around 1,000 and
customers paid according to how near they were to the screen. In 1914, he
decided to stop his wandering and settle down. Along with a partner, he took
over the Alexandra Theatre in Bombay, and four years later built the Majestic
Theatre, which was to show the first Indian talkie, H/am Hra, in 1931.

India, then a colony of Britain, was open house for British and Western film¬
makers and,just as the British Government did not impose duties on the Lancashire
cotton goods, made firom Indian cotton, that was imported into India, so foreign
film-makers were encouraged to make money from the Indian market.

This meant that from the beginning the Indian film scene was extremely
international. France, headed by Pathe, was the leading source but America, Italy,
England, Denmark, and Germany were competing for a share of the Indian
market.

One of the most interesting foreigners to make a fortune from films in India
was the American, Charles Urban, who had taken up residence in London. In
1911, he got special permission from the British Government to film The Delhi

Durbar in a process he had invented caUed Kinemacolor. He was so paranoid that
people might steal his negatives that he hid them in a pit, dug under the tent he
had pitched to stay in while filming The Durbar. His efforts paid off splendidly
and in fifteen months the film grossed three quarters of a million doUars. In
contrast, a film on the visit of George V and Queen Mary, shot by an Indian film
producer, K.P. Karandikar, made no money.

The year after The Durbar saw an Indian film-maker for the first time use

film to teU a story. The film was caUed Pundalik, a popular Hindu drama relating
the story of a Maharashtrian saint and based on a play of the same name. It had
Indian actors, a British cameraman, and was set in a Bombay garden. Nanabhai
Govind Chitre and Ramchandra GopalTorney got hold of a Williamson camera,
a photographer caUed Mr Johnson, who worked for Bourne and Shepherd, and
a weU-known photographic studio in Bombay, and assembled the actors in a
Bombay garden to film the play from several angles. About forty-five minutes
it was shown at a cinema owned by Chitre caUed the Coronation Cinema,
along with an imported film caUed A Dead Man’s Child, and another film
described as “new screaming comics.”

1 ne 7 undaltk film has not survived but the advertisement for the film shows
the methods used to lure audiences. This began by saying, “Our Pictures have
the power of arresting attention. Crowded houses nightly.” Then it went on to
say about the film, “Almost half the Bombay Hindu population saw it last week
and we want the other half to do so before a change of programme takes place.”
The advertisement ended with the exhortation, “Don’t fail to come tonight and
bring your friends.” But, let alone half of Bombay coming, so few came that

Bollywood: A History

Chitre andTorney did not get their money back, andTorney returned to his day
job with an electrical goods manufacturing company.Years later, he did return as
an importer of film equipment and producer of silent and sound films, but the
first film venture had not been a success. But, even as Chitre andTorney adrmtted
defeat, the man who would make the first feature length film in India, and who
is rightly described as the father of Indian cinema, had already been bitten by
the film bug and was hard at work.

Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, generally known as Dadasaheb Phalke, was born
in a priestly family at Trymbakeshwar, in the district of Nasik, in 1870. He was
trained for a career as a Sanskrit scholar, his father, Daji Shastri, being a well-
known Sanskrit scholar. But from an early age he showed an enthusiasm for the
arts, particularly painting, play acting and magic. His family moved to Bombay
when his father got a teaching job at Elphinstone College and this made it
possible for Phalke to join the Sir J. J. School of Arts. Here he received his
grounding in the arts, especially in photography. He had also by now become a
skilled magician, a talent he was to use quite a bit in his films.

After further training at Kala Bhavan in Baroda, and a period as photographer
for the Governmental Archaeological Dept, Phalke was offered financial help
to start an Art Printing Press. He then settled down, married, and seemed to be
consigned to a life of fine printing.

His backers, keen to acquaint him with the latest printing processes, especially
in colour work, arranged for him to take a trip to Germany. The arrangement
was on condition that Phalke must remain with the company for a stipulated
time after the journey, which he did. But when he returned, he knew that a life
in printing would not satisfy him. In about 1910, he fell ill and, for a time, lost
his eyesight. When Phalke got back his vision, an incident changed the course of
his life, and that of Indian cinema.

At a Christmas cinema show in Bombay, he saw The Life oj Christ. As the
images of Christ flashed before his eyes, he mentally visualised the Hindu gods
Krishna and Ram and spent a restless night imagining bringing them to the
screen. Before Phalke got home, he had decided on a career change. He asked
his wife to accompany him for the next screening. It is said that he had no
money, and travelling expenses, and the cost of the cinema tickets, was borne by
neighbours.

Seven decades later, in the Phalke Centenary Souvenir, published in 1970,
Saraswatibhai Phalke would recount the evening that changed her life and
launched the career of India’s first film director.

We both went to see the ‘cinema’ in an illuminated tent on Sandhurst Road,
where a band was playing. It was called the America-India Cinematograph. The
first-class tickets were priced at eight annas. It was Christmas 1911 and the hall was
crowded with Christians and Europeans.The hghts were then switched off and there

The Creators

appeared the picture of a cock moving on the screen.This was the trade mark of the
Pathe Company. Then, a comic picture started, featuring an actor called Foolshead.
After every part of the film the lights were switched on and stage items of magic,
or physical feats, were performed. The main picture that day was The Life of Christ.
People were weeping on seeing the sufferings of Christ and the crucifixion. The
film was coloured in the Kmemacolour process. On the way back, Dadasaheb said,
‘Like the life of Christ, we shall make pictures about Rama and Krishna.’ I was not
at all happy to hear that and kept quiet.

But like the good wife she was, Saraswatibhai became Phalke’s most important
collaborator.

Funds were raised by mortgaging his life insurance, and help from friends and
relatives. Before he sailed for England Phalke also bought, at a Bombay bookstall,
an ABC of cinematography, apparently the work of the British film pioneer,
Cecil Hepworth. In England, Phalke met Hepworth, whose Walton-on-Thames
studio, near London, was then one of the best equipped in the world. Phalke
spent a week there which gave him a chance to examine Hepworth’s famous
trick photography. He also went to the offices of The Weekly Bioscope, where the
editor, Mr Cabourne, tried to convince him he could not make money from
films. There were, Cabourne pointed out, several failed producers in England.
But Phalke was convinced he could succeed and, before he left England, he had
impressed Cabourne with his dedication, helped by the fact that like Cabourne,
Phalke did not smoke, did not drink and was also a vegetarian.

Early in 1912, Phalke returned to India with a Williamson camera, a Williamson
perforator, developing and printing equipment, raw film for several months of
work, and a collection of the latest film publications.

However, with money not available for major work, Phalke started with an
intermediate project. He decided on a short film in time-lapse photography. The
project was a capsule history of the growth of a pea in a pea-laden plant called
Birth of a Pea Plant. He shot one frame a day to show how the plant was growing.
The audience, which included friends, relatives and a prospective financier, were
astounded, and Phalke began to gather the money he needed. Even then, at one
stage, his wife had to pledge her jewellery as security for Phalke to secure the
loan.

Finance was not the only problem. There were also the problems of getting
actors, and in particular, getting females, to perform in front of the camera.
India has had a long theatrical tradition, theatre and performance being a part
of Hindu mythology. Theatre and dance were supposed to have originated
with the Gods, Brahma, the creator, himself, having ordered the first dramatic
performance. Shakuntala, the most famous play of Kalidas, the great Sanskrit
playwright, who had flourished in the golden age of Hinduism, the Gupta
period in the fifth century, was centred round a female character. But, by the

Bollywood: A History

time Phalke sought female actresses, the golden age of Indian theatre had long
passed. At the beginning of the twentieth century, respectable society saw theatre
as something to be shunned, and no Indian woman was ready to act in Phalke s
films. Even the prostitutes he approached, refused.

The breakthrough came when Phalke discovered a young man working in a
restaurant, an effeminate cook with slender features and hands, called Salunke.
He was given a raise of Rs five, and for the princely sum of Rs 15 a month,
joined Phalke. Phalke was to make Salunke India’s first great superstar and, some
years later, in another Phalke film, he was to achieve the extraordinary feat of
playing both the male and female leads, both Rama, the great God of the Hindus,
and his wife Sita, the ideal Hindu woman.

For his first major film, Phalke had chosen the story of Raja Harischandra, a
story from the Mahahharata, which demonstrates that as long as men remain good
and true, they will ultimately triumph. Like many such Hindu mythological tales,
the “great sin” of the good king Harischandra, committed quite accidentally, was
to interrupt the sage,Vishamitra, as he was in the midst of yagna, offering sacrifice
to the gods. The sage cursed him and the penalty was for the king, his queen,
and his young son to be exiled to the forest. This was considered guru dakshina,
paying the guru for his misdeeds. The king was then subjected to endless ordeals
which included being estranged from his queen. But nothing could make him
deviate from the path of virtue. The climactic scene was at a cremation ground
where they had brought their young son, now dead, to be cremated. The son’s
death brought the king and queen, who had become separated as they made their
journey through a living heU, back together again. But the travails of the king were
not over. The sage framed the queen for murder and ordered the king to behead
his own queen. However, as the king gets ready to follow the sage’s command,
all IS revealed. In the sort of happy ending Indian movie-goers love, the sage was
revealed not to be a vengeful fire-eating prophet, but an examiner of men’s virtues;
the ordeals Harishchandra had been put through had been meant to test him. The
gods were now satisfied Harischandra had passed aU the tests. This so pleased the
gods that the Lord Shiva himself emerged on earth and Harishchandra was restored
to all his full glory, with the young prince brought back to life.

Right from the first scene, which showed the actor D. D. Dhabka playing
Harischandra, teaching his young son ardhery, Phalke showed a mastery of the
new medium. Phalke had chosen his subject wisely. India is not alone in having
great mythical stories, but Indian myths are still seen as part of Indian life,
preserved down the generations through oral story telling. These are stories that
every Indian, certainly every Hindu child, knows, and in a land which has always
been more a continent than a nation, with many languages, customs and creeds,
they provide a shared narrative, a very real cultural unity.

Phalke, who shot the film in a bungalow in a Bombay suburb, which he had
converted into a studio, took his time to teU the story and in the end produced

The CreaiDrs

film that for the period was very long: 3,700 feet.The film was completed some
time in 1912. It was first screened on 21 April 1913 at the Olympia Theatre, with
regular shows starting ten days later at the Coronation Cinema. Phalke was aware
that he would have to do something to attract audiences since feature films of
this length were a novelty. So, for the first showings, the programme included
Miss Irene Del Mar performing a duet and dance movement, a comical sketch
by the McCIements, a juggler called Alexander the Wonderful Foot Juggler and
some comic shorts advertised as Tip-Top Comics.

Phalke was not only a good filmrmaker but a shrewd publicist and was quick
to devise strategies to attract the paying customers. When he took the film to
small towns, known as moffusil towns, he was warned that audiences there
expected to go to a show and sit through a stage play for six hours, for which
they paid just 2 annas. Yet Phalke’s film would last a mere hour and a half for
which they would be charged three annas. Phalke’s response was to advertise his
film thus; “Rfl/'fl Harischandra. A Performance with 57,000 photographs. A picture
two rrules long. All for only three annas.”

The intrinsic merit of the film, plus such publicity gimmicks, worked like a
treat, and the film was a great success. The film had critics drooling and gave
cinematic flesh to the audience-’s instinctive feel for Hindu myths. The reviewer
in The Bombay Chronicle wrote about “the striking effect of the scene of the
burning forest, and the cleverness of the apparition of the God Shiva and his
restoration of the dead boy to life.”This scene would do much to reinforce the
rehgious feelings of the audience. The film was an overwhelming success and it
changed Phalke’s life.

After the first film, Phalke moved his enterprise to Nasik, not far from where
he was born, and his subsequent films were produced there. Phalke set up the
studio model, which later Indian producers were to follow. The plot of land,
which contained woods, hills, fields and caves, provided a diversity of scenic
backgrounds. The estate provided for body-building, fencing, fighting, riding, a
library, a reading-room and even a miniature zoo.

His family, which included his wife, Kaki Phalke, five sons, three daughters and
other relatives, were all involved in his films, with Kaki Phalke supervising all the
laboratory work. A fountain in the backyard was used as a developing tank and
actors and actresses helped Mrs Phalke in the technical work.

Over time, Phalke built up his own film family, with the company growing to
a hundred employees, all of them living together on the Nasik estate. Except for
occasional crowd scenes, no outsiders were involved in his films.

Phalke was a stern disciplinarian, maintaining strict schedules. Infraction of
rules brought instant dismissal. He would pose problems before his children
encouraging them to participate in the art of film-making.

During the next ten years, Phalke made over a hundred or more films, ranging
fi^m short films to ambitious features.

Bollywood: A History

His most ambitious and successful one came four years after Raja Harischandra,
and showed how well he could exploit mythology to reach out to Indian
audiences. If his first film had taken an episode of Mahabharata then, for this
one, called Lanka Dahan, he described the climactic moment of the other great
Hindu classic, Ramayana. It showed how Rama rescued Sita from the clutches
of the demon, Ravana, burning down Lanka in the process. Salunke played
both Sita and Ram and audiences could clearly see his biceps when he played
Sita. The tail of the monkey god, Hanuman, whose help was crucial for Ram’s
crossing of the straits that divides India from Lanka, was also very clearly a rope.
But despite this, audiences were enthralled. In Bombay, the first ten days box
office collection amounted to Rs 32,000, a huge sum in those days. J. B. H.Wadia
recalls the effect the film had on ordinary Indians;

Lanka Dahan was a minor masterpiece of its time. The spectacle of Hanuman’s
figure becoming progressively diminutive as he flew higher and higher into the
clouds, and the burning of the city of Lanka, in table-top photography, were simply
awe-inspiring. I remember that devout villagers from nearby Bombay had come in
large numbers in their bullock carts to have their darshan of their beloved God, lord
Rama. Many stayed overnight on their improvised dwellings to see the film again
the next day.

But if Phalke could reach out to the masses, the Anglicised elite, the much
derided 2% who knew English, ignored him. They preferred Western films, as
did the English language papers. This was the divide in the Indian film world
that Phalke had opened up, a sort of very Indian film apartheid which continued
for many generations, until well into the 1980s. The best cinema houses in the
big cities, such as Bombay and Calcutta, only showed Western movies, generally
American or British. Indian movies were reserved for seedier cinemas in the
more run-down inner city areas.

Satyajit Ray, India’s greatest film-maker, has told us how, a few years after
Phalke’s heyday, growing up in Calcutta, he was encouraged to shun Indian films.
He describes cinemas showing the latest foreign films:

_all stood clustered in the heart of Calcutta Filmland, exuded swank and

boasted an elite clientele. On the other hand, the cinemas showing Indian fdms,
such as the Albion, were dank and seedy. One pinched one’s nose as one hurried
past the toilet in the lobby into the auditorium and sat on hard, creaky, wooden seats.
The films they showed, we were told by our elders, were not suitable for us. Since
the elders always decided what we should see, the choice fell, inevitably, on foreign
films, usually American. We thus grew up on a wholesome diet of Chaplin, Keaton
Lloyd, Firbanks,Tom Mix andTarzan, with an occasional drama-with-a moral like
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, thrown in.

The Creators

The apartheid did not cease until the 1980s, when with import of foreign films
restricted, the swanky cinema houses of Bombay, Calcutta and other cities, started
showing Hindi films.The apartheid was completely eliminated only in the 1990s
when Hindi films were relabelled Bollywood and started becoming acceptable in
the West. But that was many years after Phalke had been forgotten.

Phalke had httle reason to care about this growing film apartheid. He did
not advertise in the English papers and was more than content that he was
attracting an audience that, in any case, could not read English. This audience
also could not identify with French heroine. Protea, or the Italian comedian,
Foolshead, but, in Phalke’s films, they saw stories they had been brought up on
come to Life before their very eyes. As Phalke churned out one hit after another,
Harischandra, Mohini Bhasmasur, Satyavan, Savitri, Lanka Dahan and Shri Krishna
Janam, audiences flocked to his shows.

In time, Phalke became an exhibitor himself and travelled widely in a bullock
cart with his projector, screens and films.The audiences in this semi-rural setting
paid nothing like the two rupees charged by the movie houses in the bigger
cities. Phalke’s rural audiences paid at most two to four anna but, such were the
numbers attracted, that the weight of coins Phalke carried back home to his
Nasik estate was often enormous.

Eventually the success of the Phalke films extended to all parts of India. The
showing of Raja Harischandra in Madras brought mad rushes by the crowds
waiting to see it. Lanka Dahan was so popular that one exhibitor had a show
every hour from 7 am till midnight, with many in the audience coming back
again and again to see their gods brought to life, albeit on film.

The irony of all this was that Phalke was himself very much a man moulded by
Western ideas. We get a vivid portrayal of this in his one reel film. How Films Are
Made, fragments of which have survived and where Phalke is shown rehearsing
actors and processing and editing film. One scene shows Phalke, dressed in the sort
ofWestern clothes fashionable then, wearing a shirt with a detachable collar, and a
waistcoat. He is sitting on a mahogany chair, in a room full of furniture, that would
not have been out of place in the West. He is examining a reel of film and the only
Indian touch is that in front of him stands a man dressed in typical Indian dress,
complete with turban and a long coat. Remove that man and this could well be a
shot of a film-maker in Paris or London in the early part of the twentieth century.

Phalke was a special-effects genius and he explored a vast range of techniques,
including animation. He experimented with colour, via tinting and toning.
He used scenic models for a number of his sequences, including the burning

of Lanka, for which he burned down two sets. But besides technical expertise,
Phalke brought women into his movies, first his own daughter, Mandakini, and
then a Mahrashtrian woman called Kamalabhia Gokhale.

The introduction of Mandakini showed how daring Phalke could be and
how far ahead of his time. It came in his film Kaliya Mardan, where he took up

Bollywood: A History

the theme of the god Krishna rescuing people from a snake that was terrorising
them. A title tells the audience the role to be played by Mandakni, then five years
old. As this was happening, we see Mandkini’s face, which then slowly dissolves
to form the face of Krishna. So long before the term became fashionable in the
West, Phalke was using the Brechtian technique of making the audience realise
that what they were watching was a piece that was not magic, but man-made
fiction, all the more daring given his audiences wanted to believe in magic.

In 1914, just before the First World War broke out, Phalke travelled to London
for the second time with three of his films. The Bioscope noted that “Mr Phalke
is directing his energies in the best and most profitable direction in specialising
upon the presentation by film of Indian mythological dramas.” Phalke turned
down an offer from a London studio to make films in England, all the keener to
return home, as war had broken out.

The war added to the problems Phalke already faced in making a go of the
film business. If his skills as a film-maker cannot be doubted, film business did
not come that easily to him and the world war drastically restricted the import
of raw film stock. He survived by getting his workers to work for half their usual
salary for the duration of the war. In 1917, rising costs and the need for new
equipment forced Phalke to form a new company with five partners called the
Hindustan Film Company. For its first production Phalke turned to the subject
he had promised his wife he would make after watching The Life of Christ. This
was The Life of Krishna, where he shows Krishna’s wicked uncle Kamsa having
a dream in which several figures of Krishna attack him and decapitate the head.
The head then floats away but rejoins the body only to float away again, a trick
that is repeated several times. This was followed the next year by Kaliya Mardan,
which featured Manadakini.

However, within two years, he had quarrelled with his partners and retired to
Benares, disgusted, as he would later tell a Government committee, by the whole
film business. In this the holiest of cities for Hindus, Phalke wrote Rangabhoomi,
a stage play which satirised contemporary theatre. But he could not keep away
from Nasik and returned to resolve the quarrel and started work again, though
rarely as a director. In 1921, however, he did make Sant Tukaram, a film about a
famous poet-saint of Maharashtra.

In 1931, he tried again and made Setu Bandhan, an episode from Ramayana.
This was the last film before the company was dissolved. Although shot as a silent
film, sound, which had not arrived, was added to the film, but it failed. Phalke
had one more film in him. Made in 1937, at the age of sixty-seven, it was also
his first talkie, Ganj^avataran, and it showed Phalke could not come to terms with
the changes in the industry.

The arrival of sound had made a big difierence but his staple diet of mythological
films, while they would remain popular, was no longer that dominant. Rival genres
had begun to emerge. In the 1920s, social and historical films rose in importance

The Creators

and then stunt films, inspired by Douglas Fairbanks, became a favourite. Phalke,
once the innovator, now started to feel like an outsider.

In 1927, he was the first to give evidence to the Indian Cinematograph
Committee, and while his faith in films remained strong, and he denied that
they were a bad influence on morals, his answers show his disillusionment
with the way the medium, which he had done so much to create in India, had
developed;

Almost all productions now in India are lacking in technique and ardstic merit.

The acting is not good. The photography, specially, is of the worst class. Nobody

knows anything about the art.

He called for a school to be set up “somewhere in India, to teach the cinema
industry photography, acting screenplay, scenario-writing etc.”

It would be many decades before the first tentative steps in that direction
were taken.

He died in Nasik on February' 16 1944, at the age of 74, a forgotten genius.

The Indian film historian, Garga, has no doubts that Phalke was a great
iimovator whose “contribution to Indian cinema cannot be overestimated. His
pioneering efforts firmly estabhshed the Indian film as an indigenous product
which has its roots in a rich and fertile soil.”

Cinema had come to India at the same time as the rest of the world and,
thanks to Phalke, India kept in step with the world—indeed was ahead of it.
Phalke’s Raja Harischandra was shown seven months before Cecil B. DeMille
started shooting The Squaw Man and three years before D. W. Griffiths screened
The Birth of a Nation, both great film classics.

The contrast between the Phalke and Griffiths films could not be greater.
Griffiths’ film is an unabashed celebration of white racism. The Klu Klux
Klansman is the hero of the film, as the subtitle “The Fiery Cross of the Klu
Klux Klan” makes very clear, with white actors blacked up to portray blacks as
beasts preying on white women. Phalke’s work is a study in goodness, resembling
the story of Job in the Old Testament. But while Griffiths’ film is available in its
entirety, the full-length version of Phalke's great work has been lost, although
after great effort the Indian National Film Archives did manage to salvage some
of the original four reels. It is yet another story of how India creates and then
forgets.

But that is in keeping with India’s traditions; a land with a rich history but few
historians and an astonishing disregard for preserving its own history.

The Mighty Banyan Tree

Phalke may have been the first great director of the Indian cinema but the man
he invited to a preview of Raja Harischandra can lay rightful claim to be India’s
first movie mogul, and his conversion to films was very similar to that of Phalke.
Phalke had been moved by The Life of Christ. Jamsetji Framji Madan was so
besotted by Phalke’s film that he started the first dominant studio system in India
and became the master of the Indian film world, comparable in stature to ones
in Hollywood. His emergence also set right what was an initial anomaly in the
development of the Indian film industry: the absence of major Parsi figures.

As we have seen, less than a month after the arrival of the cinema in India, The
Times of India had moaned that “our Parsi friends” were not taking an interest. This
was uncharacteristic of them. Almost everything of any significance that happened
in Indian life from the middle of the nineteenth century to the early years of the
twentieth century had enormous Parsi influence, from pohtics, through business,
to entertainment. If the Parsis coOaborated with the British, then the early leaders
of the Indian Congress which led the freedom movement against the British,
were also predominantly Parsis. They were the ultimate middle-men. Slow as the
Parsis may have been to get off the mark in the new medium, they were quick to
catch up and were soon centre stage adding a third C, to their already estabhshed
dominance in the other two C’s: Commerce and Cricket.

No one did this with more style and authority than Madan, who combined
both the Parsi business acumen, which had made them the first Indian
bourgeoisie, with the well-known Parsi love for the theatre.

Long before Madan was born, Parsi theatre was well estabhshed in Bombay.
In 1836, twenty years before Madan was born, the Bombay Theatre, styled after
London’s Drury Lane, which showed plays to British soldiers and East India
Company officials, had been bought by the well-known Parsi businessman. Sir
Jamshedjee Jeejeebhoy. In 1853, Dadabhai Naoroji had helped establish the Parsi
Stage Players, which the Indian cinema historian, Bhagwan Das Garga, says helped
“determine the shape and structure of popular Indian theatre and later of the Talkie

The Mighty Banyan Tree

film.” A decade before Madan’s birth, the Grant Road Theatre was set up. While
it was owned by a Hindu, the businessman, Jaganath Shankarshet, the performers
were mainly Parsi amateur troupes putting on plays in Enghsh, Marathi, Gujerati
and Hindi. When Madan was a year old, Jeejeebhoy started the J.J. School of Art
in 1857, the same year as the Great Revolt very nearly brought an end to British
rule in India. Madan was barely in his teens when Kaikushroo Kabraji estabhshed
Victoria, the first professional Parsi theatrical company. It was Kabaiji who first
staged Ranchodbhjai Udayram’s play Raja Harishchandra, which Phalke brought to
the cinema and which, in turn, inspired Madan to venture into films.

Madan brought to the films many of the traditions of the Parsi theatre.
“The dominant theme of the Parsi theatre,” write Ashish Rajadhyaksha and
Paul Willemen in Tie Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema, “were the historical, the
romantic melodrama, and the mythological, with a major influence being the
seventeenth century Elizabethan theatre, especially via translations, and adaptations
of Shakespeare, a tradition that fed,into film....The Anglophile Parsi repertoire’s
classicism, comparable to academic naturahsm in the visual arts, substantially
determined the transformation of classic and popular music into urban stage (and
later recording) modes, as transition assimilated into the early sound cinema.”

The traditions of this theatre had been drilled into Madan from a very early
age. He had, himself, started as an actor at the tender age of 17 when, in 1873, he
performed in Nusserwanji Parek’s Sulemani Shamsher, along with his brother Pestonji.
Another brother, Khurshedji, was a partner in the original Victoria Theatrical Club.
By the 1890s, Madan, who was a shrewd businessman, with interests that covered
insurance, property, pharmaceuticals, the import of food and drinks, and film and
film equipment, bought the Elphinstone and the Khatau-Alfred, two of the most
prominent Bombay theatrical companies. Madan also bought their creative staff and
the rights to their repertoire. But his emergence as India’s first movie mogul came
in 1902, when he made the cross-continental journey to Calcutta on the east coast.
It was a bold move and showed the strategic sense of the man.

For a Parsi to leave Bombay for Calcutta in the early part of the twentieth
century was an unusual move. Bombay then was at the heart of Parsi commercial
and cultural activity; such was their dominance of Bombay business that they
more than matched the British business houses of the city. Indeed they did
much to lay the foundation of modern Bombay. In contrast, there were very few
prominent Parsis in Calcutta and British business reigned supreme there. But
Madan sensed that as the capital of British India it offered better prospects for
this new medium and so it proved.

Madan’s rise in Calcutta generated many colourful stories suggesting it was a
rags to riches effort. One of them was that he had been a prop boy at Calcutta’s
Corinthian Hall, which he later owned, another that, in 1902, having purchased
, film equipment from an agent of Pathe Freres, he launched a bioscope show in
fe a tent at Calcutta’s Maidan.

Soliywood; A History

The Mighty Banyan Tree

More credible is the theory that Madan was a fairly substantial businessman
when he came to Calcutta, and only got into film-making in 1905 when he
presented Jyotish Sarkar’s documentaries, such as The Great Bengal Partition
Movement at the Elphinstone Picture Place, the first of many Madan-owned film
theatres.Two years later he added the Minerva and the Star to his collection and
through the 1910s his expansion was so relentless that by the end of the decade
he had thirty-seven theatres.

Madan’s skills lay in shrewdly exploiting the particular Indian conditions he
had to operate under. So, well aware of the apartheid the Raj had imposed in
Indian cities, he bought or leased cinemas in Calcutta’s white town, what the
British called the European quarters of the city—the British in India always
classified themselves as Europeans, emphasising that they were a white ethnic
group and their clubs, railway carriages, and other places that excluded Indians,
invariably did so under the banner ‘Europeans only’.

Madan appreciated that the cinemas in the European part of the town were
often not only in better condition but could charge higher ticket prices, catering
to the British armed forces stationed in the city, as also other Europeans and Anglo-
Indians. Indians too were attracted to his cinemas, with Satyajit Ray happily going
to a Madan theatre, but not to a theatre in the Indian part of town.

While larger crowds turned up for Indian films, and also made the exhibitors
of films more money, Madan was very aware of the snobbery of his fellow Indians
which was openly broadcast when an exhibitor was questioned by the Indian
Cinematograph Committee in 1927: The exchange between the committee
members and the exhibitor went as follows:

The type of people who like Indian pictures, their way of living is quite different
and generally they chew betel leaves. Let me give you an example. I did show an
Indian film, iMtika Dahan, and I made 18,000 rupees in a week. But it ruined my
theatre altogether.

Q.You mean you had to disinfect the cinema?

A. I had to disinfect the hall and at the same time I had to convince the audience
that I had disinfected it.TiU then I went on losing money.

The Indian public was discovering the cinema and there were various ways of
experiencing this new phenomenon. Madan’s fellow-Parsi, a Bombay resident,
J.B.H Wadia, of whom we shall hear much more later, describes the experience
of going to the cinema in the 1920s:

At the theatre, our strategy could not have been bettered by, say, a military officer.
Kot would keep his wallet intact, so as to frustrate the hkely legerdemain of a nearby
pickpocket. Jehan would buy three tickets for us. My job was to run up to the
main door of the third class and manage to push my way forward by hook or by

crook. The doors would be immediately thrown open after the entire audience
of the previous show had gone out. Then there would be a veritable stampede of
cinemagoers in the auditorium. Then I would try to secure the best seat possible
on the wooden benches by laying myself prostrate on one of them. This was the
accepted technique for reservations of seats in those days.

However, it was a very different world for the affluent classes, as Wadia again
recounts:

The elite in balcony and box received VIP treatment in several first rung cinema
houses. The doorkeeper would enter pompously, as if he was a superstar, coming
onto the stage from the wings, holding a silver Pigani (spray) of rose water in his
hand, and would then walk from one end to the other, sprinkling it liberally on and
over the occupants who would go into a fitting reverie as if they had been supplied
with hashish. Those enterprising Parsi exhibitors, the Wellington Brothers (Seth
Rustomji and Seth Ruttonshah Dorabaji), would even present rosebuds to each of
their regular patrons; and in the splendid Indian way of life not only enquire of their
health but also of the entire family.

While most theatres apparendy had two or more showings a day, one theatre gave
twelve during melas festivals. Prices were generally in three or more classes ranging
fiom 2 or 3 annas to 2 rupees. In cities, the top price might be 3 rupees for box or
sofa seats. In the lesser cinemas, the lowest price could be i anna for ground seats.

The Indian Cinematograph Committee, which went round the country in
the late 1920s inquiring into the state of the cinema, and has left us a fascinating
insight into the Indian cinema world of the 20s, questioned theatres ranging from
the Madan chain to the mofiissil theatres in small semi-rural towns, and found that
the mofiissil theatres were in a sorry state: the lowest class of spectator had to squat
on the ground and the benches and chairs in the other classes were in wretched
condition and infested by bugs. There was no proper ventilation and most of
the theatres were merely corrugated tin sheds. There was very little open space
surrounding the theatre and no garden to please the eye and to attract the pubhc.

The Indian penchant for officials with power, wanting things for free, caused
exhibitors many problems with the local authority. “The police, the customs
officials, the postal, telegraph and municipal workers, and a host of other people,
have to be admitted free to avoid trouble.’ Women film-goers were scarce, though
Hindu my thologicals brought them out in large numbers. During Western films
“when a kissing scene is shown, the ladies turn their heads away.”

Although this was the era of silent movies, in a country which was more of a
continent, with several languages and many illiterates, it was not enough to just
project the movie on a screen. Silent movies had subtitles to explain the action
and in India this meant that movie houses had to provide people who could read

Bollywood: A History

aloud the subtitles to those who could not read. The result was that films often
had subtitles in three or four languages. A print made for circulation in the north
might have subtitles in Hindi, Gujerati and Urdu; in the south, a print might
have subtitles in Tamil, Telegu and English. As each subtitle came up, a rumble
would sweep over the audience as people who could read proclaimed the words
for those who could not. A few theatres had ofTicial readers.

One of the theatre-owners giving evidence was asked whether this meant
cinemas had translators:

Oh, yes. There is a man always standing there and explaining the film. He is a
very clever fellow. He knows all about the story.Then.as soon as one scene is on, he
explains the whole thing in Telegu, because not everybody can read what is on the
film. He stands there throughout, he is a lecturer.

Q.We were told that such a man is a nuisance.

A. Not at all. He is paid 50 rupees.

Many Indian producers made three prints of films, with ten being the
maximum. The import duty on raw materials was the reason. The shortcomings
of Indian films were often mentioned by several of the witnesses. But what
emerged most clearly was, despite the shortcomings, Indian films were preferred.
One exchange at the inquiry on this subject went as follows:

Q, You mean that ordinary people—we won’t call them illiterate, but not belonging
to the middle-class—you mean to say that they do not go to those theatres where
foreign films are shown? Is that what you mean by your answer?

A.Yes, they do not go....formerly they used to go and see fighting or any exciting
films, or comic films.

Q. Now that Indian films are produced, you think the attendance at foreign films of
a social nature is falling?

A. Yes.

But despite this, exhibitors found it difficult to show Indian films.

Q.You find it difficult to get Indian films?

A. Yes, the rates are exorbitant.

Q. Have you ever taken Western films?

A.Yes, they are cheaper than Indian films but they do not attract the same audience
as Indian films.

Not surprisingly, Madan’s theatres mainly showed Western movies and
until the First World War, Madan exhibited largely British films supphed by a
Rangoon-based company.

Rangoon-based company.

The Mighty Banyan Tree

At this stage, Madan had been following established convention. In the period
before the First World War, Indian theatres exhibited an assortment of foreign
films, mainly from Europe. India was not unique in this. Most countries then had
a big foreign influence, much of it from Europe. In 1910, for example, the features
released in Great Britain included thirty-six from France, twenty-eight from the
US, and seventeen from Italy, well ahead of the fifteen from Great Britain and
four from Denmark, Germany and elsewhere. Before 1914, French cinema was
far more developed than American and, in 1907, 40% of aU films being shown in
the US nickelodeons were from one studio in Paris: Pathe.

The shots in Sarajevo that led to war in 1914 would, quite unwittingly, create
a cinematic revolution. It almost stopped film production on the continent,
allowing the hiUs round Hollywood, which had begun to make films just before
the war, to take over. With the audience hungry for films, and the new medium
considered necessary for morale, American producers were ready to fill the void.
The American expansion soon made Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and others,
household deities throughout the world, created fortunes, and set the stage for
further expansion after the war. By the time the treaty ofVersaiUes was signed,
America was the film capital of the world, producing more than 80% of all the
films then made.

Trench warfare was over, but a new one was just beginning.

With this American dominance also came a new pattern for film distribution.
Britain had portents of what this might mean as early as 1915. The Essanay
Company, controlling the most wanted of aU films, those of Chaplin, required
British exhibitors to take the whole Essanay output, not just the Chaplin films.
British producers found British theatres booked up far ahead by block-booking
and increasingly unable to absorb the slim output of the British film industry.

If the British, French and other producers were finding it difficult to regain a
toe hold in their own countries, they found it completely impossible to regain
the pre-war hold they had exercised in the US Here, vast consolidations were
taking place. Theatre chains like Loew’s began purchasing studios in order to be
certain of a steady flow of films. In 1919, Paramount launched theatre-buying
and theatre-building programmes in order to have a secure home market. By
1921, Paramount had 300 theatres and a decade later almost a thousand. Fox and
Warner Brothers also bought American theatres by the hundreds; only Universal
was a bit more modest. Many theatres which were not bought came under the
control of the producers via block-booking contracts. Opportunities for foreign
films in the US thus became severely restricted. And with the Americans secure
in their homelands, they now wanted to expand overseas.

Indian cinema owners adapted to this new reality, replacing Europe and
Britain, in particular, with America as their source for imported films. Soon
90% of aU imports to India were from the US and Madan, quickly adjusting
to the changing circumstances after the war, began to import films from Metro

uic cnanging circumstances alter me war, Degan to import mms irom metro

Bollywood; A History

The Mighty Banyan Tree

and United Artists. The Americans were not slow to sense the potential of the
Indian market. Because they were already financially secure in India, American
films could be offered at lower prices than most other films, including Indian.
An Indian film usually had to recoup around Rs20,ooo, while a distributor
showing an American film, generally paid a fraction of this. In 1927, for example,
an importer of some Columbia Pictures paid as little as Rs2ooo per feature for
rights in India, Burma and Ceylon. American films usually appeared in India
eighteen months after release, although some came much sooner. The Thief
of Baghdad, starring Douglas Fairbanks, seems to have been the biggest hit.
Exhibitors almost never saw films before booking them. Outright purchase of
films—pirated in some cases—was prevalent amongst travelling cinemas, but
others rented them at RS50 a night.

In 1916, Universal had become the first of the American producing companies
to establish an agency in India. By the mid 1920s, it was offering Indian theatres
fifty-two features, fifty-two comedies and fifty-two newsreels per year. Block¬
booking seems to have been involved only rarely. Universal appears to have felt
that the Indian market was worth nurturing, patiently, and appeared to have
gained a reputation for being humane. An exhibitor, irate at the demands of film
distributors, declared: “The noblest exception to this statement is the Universal
Pictures Corporation, whose agent in Bombay, and several local managers, are
very considerate to theatre owners.”

From fairly early on in the 1920s, American films formed the staple of most
Madan theatres and through the decade Madan Theatres imported many of the
products of American companies, often buying them in wholesale lots to secure
the outstanding big name attractions. In 1923, the year J. F. Madan died, 90% of
Madan theatre films came from the US, the remaining 10% was divided between
Great Britain, Germany and France. Such was the dominance of America that
in 1926-27, only 15% of the features released in India were Indian, 85% were
foreign, mostly American.

The Europeans did try to challenge this American dominance and in the
post-war years, Germany was the first country to strengthen the international
position of its film industry through Government action. This involved lavish
Government investments in studios, equipment and production subsidies. In
the 192OS, the German film underwent a dramatic rebirth, which had its impact
in India, with several Indo-German co-productions, the first of which was The
Light of Asia in 1925. German film technicians also came to work in India.

But Madan was not just an importer. He was also keen to make Indian films.
Money was clearly a factor; he realised he could make money from producing
his own movies, but he also wanted to nurture Indian talent. A year after the
end of the First World War, Madan set up Madan Theatres Limited, a Joint stock
company which both exhibited foreign films and also started producing Indian
films. The Madan formula for producing films mixed a liberal helping of foreign

technical help with reliance on stories from Hindu mythology. Apart from a
number of European technicians, his two most prominent directors were the
Italian Eugenio De Liguoro and Camile Legrand from Pathe Studios in Paris.
Before the war, Pathe had produced The Life of Christ which had launched
Phalke, and Italy could claim to be the master of cinematic innovation with
Giovanni Pasatrone’s Cabiria and Enrico Guazzopni’s Quo Vadis.

Madan’s other innovation was that for the first time a genuine female star
appeared. In F^alke’s Raja Harishchandra, and Lanka Dahan, the female lead
had been played by a man, albeit an effeminate one, but in Madan’s films he
introduced several female stars, one of whom. Patience Cooper, is widely
regarded as the first great female star of the Indian screen. An Anglo-Indian,
Cooper had started out as a dancer in Bandmann s Musical Comedy, a Eurasian
troupe. Her distinctively Anglo-Indian looks: dark eyes, sharp features, ebony
hair and light skin tone, allowed technicians to experiment with the imported
technique of eye-level lighting and achieve the Hollywood look, an appearance
similar to Hollywood stars of the silent era.

In 1921, De Liguor directed her in Nala and Damayanti, a love story from
Mahabharata, one of the two great epics of Hinduism, and the following year
Legrand directed her in Ratnavali, Harsha’s Sanskrit classic where Legrand
himself played the Prince opposite the Princess, played by Cooper. Three years
later, in 1924, Madan Theatres went even further when they shot an entire film
in Italy in what is generally considered the first co-production by an Indian
film-maker. Based on another Hindu mythological story Savitri, where a wife
successfully fights Yama, the god of death, for her husband’s life, both the husband
and the wife were played by Italians, Rina De Liguoro and Angelo Ferrari. The
whole film was shot in Rome and when it was released m India, Madan Theatres
made much of the fact that there were “scenes taken amidst the world renowned
cascades of Tivoli in Rome.” It was all quite incongruous and amazing but
Madan Theatres knew their Indian audience for the film proved a great success.

The reason for the success of Madan films may be, as Garga says, that the basis
of nearly all his films was that they “used mythology as a pretext for spectacle
in which scantily clad dancing girls cavorted.” By this time, Jamsetji Madan had
died; he died a year before the Italian co-production, and control of his cinema
empire passed to the third of his five sons,J.J. Madan.The young Madan carried
on in the innovative style of his father, introducing the first Wurlitzer organ to
India. Its mellifluous tones, as Satyajit Ray recalled, “drowned out the noise of
the projector while heightening the drama on the screen.” He also expanded
the studio’s activities, producing a range of films which extended from Indian
epics through Persian and Arabic folk tales and historical romances, to modern
love stories. This included short films which could often be educational or
instructional. One was an unusual operation by a skilled surgeon, another for
the Bengal Public Health Service, in addition to films on jute, tea, tobacco, and

Bollywood: A Hisiory

cotton and travel and newsreel footage. It is not unusual in Indian business for a
son of a successful father to ruin the business but J.J. Madan built on J.Es legacy
and the Madan empire continued to expand. Three years before J.F.’s death, the
company had owned or controlled fifty-one theatres; by 1927, four years after
the great man had gone, it controlled eighty-five, sixty-five owned and twenty
supplied under contract. This grew to 126 by 1931. So dominant a force was
it in the Indian cinematic world that it could outbid everyone. Its financial
muscle meant it was less affected by the nightmarish uncertainties about foreign
film supply that plagued most Indian exhibitors who, in order to get the most
desirable films, often had to take foreign films they did not want.

Not surprisingly, Madan’s dominance led to charges that it was a dangerous
monopoly. But in December 1927, J.J. Madan gave two days of testimony in
front of the Indian Cinematograph Committee and appeared to convince the
committee members that charges of monopoly against his company were false
and that they were simply more alert than the competition.

Soon after, he travelled to the US where, in New York, he saw first hand
the effect that The Jazz Singer, the first feature-length Hollywood talkie, was
having on the audience. He toured Hollywood to examine this revolutionary
development and, unlike many others, who felt sound would not work, J.J.
quickly sensed this was the way forward. Madan, having caught the fever,
ordered sound production equipment and headed back for India. In 1929,
Madan Theatres ushered in the talking picture in India by premiering at the
Elphinstone Theatre in Calcutta, Universal’s Melody of Love. This was not only a
first for India but for the entire East and his Elphinstone Picture Palace became
the first theatre to have permanent sound apparatus. A construction of a sound¬
proof studio was also started at Tollygunge and an ambitious sound production
schedule was planned.

Hand-in-hand with such use of the best available foreign technical assistance
and foreign directors, Madan continued his father’s tradition of nurturing home¬
grown talent. Under the Madans, both lather and son, many an aspiring young
Indian film-maker found a home. A whole host of them worked for Madan
theatres, including Sisir Kumar Bhadhuri, Jyotish Banneiji, Priyanath Ganguli,
Amrit Bose, Madhu Bose and Naresh Mitra.

The Madans also had a shrewd sense of the essential ingredient required for
a good film. So rights were bought up for many of the stories and novels ol
Bankim Chandra Chattei^ee, Bengal’s first great novelist, and also Rabindranath
Tagore, the greatest literary figure the sub-continent has produced, and
the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize for literature. One of Madan theatres
most memorable films was Indrsabha, screened in 193-2 and based on an Urdu
play which had been written in 1853 by Amanat, the court poet of Wajid All
Shah, the last Nawab of Oudh, and considered a seminal play of the Indian
theatre.

The Mighty Banyan Tree

The senior Madan’s grounding in Parsi theatre had always made him value
playwrights and for more than twenty years his theatres employed the Indian
Shakespeare, Agha Hashr Kashmiri. A descendant of Kashmiri shawl merchants,
hence the surname Kashmiri, although he was more popularly know as Hashr,
he had studied Persian and Arabic and, after working in Bombay, came to
Calcutta in 1914 to join Madan Theatres. He soon established a reputation as a
major playwright and many of his plays were adapted into silent films. He also
borrowed from Shakespeare and in Saide, Hashr combined two of the bard’s
plays: Richard ///with King John, the last two acts being taken from this play. As
the silent movies gave way to talkies, Hashr turned to screen plays. Such was
his prominence that Urdu, the linguistic product of the meeting of Islam and
Hinduism, exerted a tremendous influence on early Indian films, both in terms
of the language used and the techniques of the Urdu stage. Hashr also introduced
an innovation that has remained to this day of having a comic sub-plot in every
Indian movie, even if the film itself is far from a comedy. By the time he died in
June 193 s, at the age of fifty-six, his countrywide reputation was so immense that
all studios and theatres closed for the day as a mark of respect.

But as the lights dimmed for an evening to honour Hashr, they were about
to be permanently switched off for the company that had employed him. By
1935, Madan Theatres was in terminal decline and could not be rescued. Initially,
not many Indians could believe that Madan Theatres could die. The studios
had suffered disasters before and survived. In March 1925, two years after the
senior Madan’s death, a fire destroyed much of the company’s production. But it
recovered and, as we have seen, by the early 1930s had coped very well with both
the coming of sound and colour with Madan Theatres appearing to give every
indication that it was ready to face the challenges of the talkies. However, just as
the ancient Romans believed that the hour of victory was the most dangerous,
so as Madan had made history by screening the first sound film in India, wider
events was casting their shadow and making their collapse inevitable.

In the autumn of 1929, soon after the screening of Universal Love, New York
suffered its spectacular stock market crash.The Madans were already launched on
their plans to convert their theatres to sound but, as the stock market collapsed, it
ushered in a world economic depression. The Madans, involved in innumerable
enterprises, now found themselves cash-strapped. The size of the business and the
casual way it was run now began to tell against the Madans. The Madan Empire,
spread through Ceylon, Burma and India, which were then all one territory,
had always made efficient supervision forbidding. But in days of plenty, lack of
control could be masked; now, with India drawn into the world recession, the
Madans paid a heavy price for their poor management.

The conversion of the theatres loomed as a major obstacle and they started
reporting increasing losses ot revenue. While one aspect of it might have been a drop
in audience attendance, the main reason was that with the collaboration of paid

Ballywood: A Hisiory

inspectors and theatre managers, attendance figures were being misreported and
profits siphoned off. In 1931, J.J. Madan started selling off die vast empire. Once the
decision was taken, properties were disposed off very rapidly. In less than two years,
the empire of 126 theatres had dwindled to just one, Calcutta’s Regal cinema.

Madan still wanted to hold on to the idea of producing films and was keen
to make the first Indian talkie. His hopes rested on a movie called Jamai Sashti, a
Bengali comedy, and also on Shirin Farhad, a big budget musical. He did not quite
achieve that, being beaten by a bare three weeks by a film produced by a Bombay
rival. However, Madan did became the first Indian production company to release
a whole programme of sound films. On March 14, 1931, the same day that Bombay
saw the first Indian talkie, Madan Theatres put on thirty-one such films. They
included a hymn chanted in Sanskrit by “lady worshippers at the Temple of Siva,”
a girls’ chorus singing a Tagore song, a dance by the Corinthian girls, a recitation
of Kalidasa and a speech by the great Indian scientist, Sir C.V. Raman. But, on the
same day, in Bombay, Imperial released the first Indian ssiund feature, Alain Ara.

Madan did release Jamai Sashti, the first Bengali talkie, and followed it with Shirin
Farhad, wTich was considered superior to Alam Ara, better produced, more songs
and so captivated India audiences that it was said a Lahore tonga-driver—a horse-
drawn cart driver—pawned his horse to see the film twenty-two nines. In 19.Ii>
Madan released eight sound films, some in Bengali, others in Hindu and, by 1932,
this had doubled to sixteen. In 1932, Madan also introduced colour to the Indian
cinema with the film Bilwamanoal, where, in a script written by Hashr, Patience
Cooper played a courtesan with whom Bilwamangal falls in love. While the film
was processed abroad, Madan’s foreign technicians based in Calcutta also worked
on the film and it was widely advertised as the “Madan Colour Process. ’

But all this could do little to stop the relentless haemorrhaging of money from
the business. 1933 saw a slow-down in film production and the following year
the studio was offered for rent and then finally sold. By I 93 h> India’s first answer
to a system comparable to Hollyw'ood was history. To make matters worse, but
an all-too common story in India, Madan Theatres left behind nothitig tangible
to recall its glories. As Garga says “not a single film to be remembered by,
because studios wilfully, or through neglect, destroyed their old films, printed on
inflammable nitrate stock.”

Today, the rise and fall of the Madan Empire is a forgotten story, its main
memorial a street in the heart of Calcutta, and its main offices now home to the
Anti-Rowdy Section of the Calcutta Police. Yet its contribution to the growth
of Indian cinema is undeniable. It had brought Hollywoods studio system to
India, an integrated method of production, distribution and e.x:hibition, with the
collection from the box office financing Indian movies. Over the years, India was
to move away from this Hollywood system but, in the early years of the cinema,
it was immensely useful to have Madan. Without Madan Indian cinema might
not have taken off quite so quickly.

Growing Under the Banyan Tree

The Madans were like a giant banyan tree; while it was dominant, under its
shade, others could grow, and the story of Dhiren Ganguly, also known as
Dhirendranath Gangopadhyae, or D.G., shows how some of the early pioneers
of the Indian screen, first with silent movies, then talkies, developed.

Ganguly was born in 1893, in Calcutta, in a house where Satyajit Ray’s
grandfather, U pendrakishore Rowchowdhury, was also a tenant. He studied at
Calcutta University' and then went to Santiketan, the university Tagore had set up
in a rural idyll near Calcutta, to study arts. After qualification, Ganguly got a job
in Hyderabad as headmaster at the Nizam’s art college. The Nizam of Hyderabad,
who ruled a state larger than France, was considered one of the richest men in the
world, but with a reputation for being a miser and whose harem was a subject of
much rumour and legend. Ganguly had little contact with the remote autocratic
ruler and his task could not have been onerous for he found time for other projects
and in 1915 published a book of photographs, Bhaher Abhihaktae. In this he himself
appeared in a number of roles as men and women of all ages, and all segments of
society. In some photographs he appeared in several guises. For example, in one
he was an orator on a soap box, as well as each of the four people listening. The
book provided an outlet for his rich satirical sense and was immensely popular. It
also helped launch his film career and brought him to the notice of the Calcutta
Pohee. They were very impressed with the way Ganguly could don disguises
and employed him to train detectives in the art of disguise. Decades later, he was
recalled to give similar advice to the police of independent India.

Ganguly followed this with Amar Desh, My Country and two other books.
Ganguly sent his first two books to J. F. Madan and the two men met some time
in 1918. Madan, as we have seen, at this time was at the height of his powers and
immediately showed his .shrewdness as a businessman. When he learnt Ganguly
had studied under Tagore, and thus knew the great man well, he encouraged him
to get Tagore’s permission to make a film based on his play, Sacrifice. Ganguly had
no problems getting the poet’s consent.

Bollywood: A History

Growing Under the Banyan Tree

However, Ganguly, while a very inventive man, could not stick to a plan or idea
for long and Sacrifice was postponed as, attracted by a another offer, Ganguly now
emerged as a rival to Madan. A Calcutta businessman, R B. Dutt, who had made
substantial profits from the manufacture of wooden buckets, wanted to invest in
films. He suggested to Nitish Chandra Laharrie, who worked for Madan, to leave
Madan and help Dutt form a new group. Ganguly joined this new group which
was called the Indo-British Film Company. It consisted of four partners: Dutt, as
financier, Laharrie, as General manager,]. C. Sircar, as cameraman, and Ganguly,
as dramatic director, which also included writing.

The story that Ganguly wrote, and which w'as soon being filmed, was quite
remarkable. Belat Pherot, England Returned, achieved the unlikely dual feat of
satirising both the pretensions of Indians returning home from England, trying
to behave like Brits with a stiff upper lip, and at the same time the conservatism
of those Indians to whom every new idea was an abomination. The Bombay
Chronicle described it as the story of “a young Indian who returns to his native
land after a long absence and is so mightily impressed with his foreign training
that, at his parental home, he startled everybody with his quixotic notions of love
and matrimony.” A still of the picture showed Ganguly dressed as the archetypal
Englishman of that time: button downed shirt, tie, the eye glass fixed to a chain,
which dangled down his neck, and a pipe in his hand, looking startled as he
reacted to some remark of his Indian relations. The film shrewdly balanced its
digs at those Indians who were too foreign for India, with those who could
not abide anything foreign. Ganguly, who played the leading role, showed such
comic ability that he was instantly hailed as the Indian Charlie Chaplin. It is still
considered a masterpiece of the Indian cinema and six years later, m 19^7 when
Laharrie gave evidence to a Government inquiry, he described it as one of the
most successful ever shown in Bengal.”

The 4000 foot film opened in 1921 at Russa, the only theatre not owned by
the Madans, and soon earned far more than the production cost of Rs20,000
during its three month run. The Bombay rights were then sold to a Bombay
businessman for Rs22,ooo. Madan, ever the businessman, overcame whatever
feelings he might have had for the men who had left him and quickly bought
all the remaining rights.

However, success proved too much for the partners of the Indo-British Film
Company. Within a year they had parted company and gone their separate ways.
Ganguly married a distant relative ofTagore and returned to Hyderabad but not
before enticing several Calcutta technicians to go with him. In Hyderabad, he
started the Lotus Film Company under the patronage of the Nizam. Ganguly
must have been persuasive for the Nizam even gave permission to use Palace
backgrounds for the production of Ganguly’s films.

The company set up its own laboratory and within a short time was also
operating two Hyderabad cinemas. Ganguly was very busy and soon producing

)

a number of films. Some were comedies in the Belat Pherot style like 7 }ic Lady
Teacher and The Marriage Ttrnir. There was a mythological film called Hara Gouri,
while another film, The Stepmother, was based on a Bengali play.

But in 1924, Ganguly realised the perils of making films in a land ruled by an
autocratic Prince who brooked no dissent. Although the British owned India, not
all of India was actually ruled by the British. A third of India, containing almost
two-thirds of the population, was ruled by Indian princes who had treaty rights
with the Raj governing their external relations, but internally could do pretty
much as they pleased. And the Nizam now showed what his internal rule meant.

At one of the Hyderabad Theatres, Ganguly was showing a Bombay produced
film, Razia Begum, based on a historical story of the only Muslim queen to rule
Delhi. In Indian history this period, around the middle of the thirteenth century
AD, is known as the Delhi sultanate when, for a time, former slaves became kings.
Razia was the daughter of the Slave King, Shamsuddin Ilutimish. She would,
herself, marry a former Abyssian slave.The historical tale was made for the cinema.
The slave, Altunia, had became a warlord and initially was loyal to Razia. But, then,
lured by the chance of becoming king himself, he started a revolt against her and
even jailed her. But she then married him and they now joined forces against
others threatening her throne. Like all such love stories this was meant to end in
tragedy and did with the two lovers perishing in battle. The film was a great success
in Bombay. But in other parts of India it had been refused a censor certificate on
the ground that it was “immoral, indecent and offensive to Mohammedans.” The
Nizam, as the great protector of the faith, was furious that it was being shown and,
soon after its appearance in Hyderabad, a functionary of the Nizam arrived at the
offices of the Lotus Film Company and instructed Ganguly and his associates to
leave the Nizam’s domain within twenty-four hours.

That very day the two theatres were closed, equipment was packed and families
and technicians hurriedly went to the station to take the train out of the Nizam’s
domains.The quickest way out of Hyderabad was the night train to Bombay and
Ganguly made a brief stop there, trying to become a distributor. But he failed
and soon Ganguly was back in Calcutta to organise new ventures which brought
him into touch with some of the other remarkable people to grew under the
Madan Banyan tree. Prominent among them was Debaki Kumar Bose.

Son of an attorney, he was born in Akalpoush, in the Burdwan district ofWest
Bengal in 1898. In 1920, he was busy with his studies at Calcutta University and
was to take exams that would make him a Bachelor of Arts, when the Indian
National Congress met in a special session in Calcutta. Gandhi was just about to
launch his great non-violent, non-cooperation movements against the British,
and Debaki was swept into the rising tide of Indian nationalism. The following
year, when Gandhi gave the call for Indians to boycott British institutions, young
Debaki left college. His father, an eager collaborator with British rule in India,
was furious and cut him off and Debaki went to Burdwan and opened a stall

Bollywood: A History

in the bazaar, selling napkins. He also became the assistant editor of a Congress
weekly, Sakti. For some years he made a living by whatever means he could.

This was what Debaki was doing when, some time in igiS, Ganguly arrived
in Burdwan to sell shares in the British Dominion Film Company, the new
film company he was setting up. A physician who invested in the company
told Ganguly that Bose might be an interesting recruit. Ganguly met Bose and
suggested he write a script. Bose sent him the script of Flames of Flesh, which
eventually became the first production of the British Dominion Film Company.
Debaki Bose started working for the company at rks30 a month and, besides
writing the first feature, he also played the leading role.

Despite his problems with the Nizam, Ganguly had not lost his touch with
Indian princes. He soon became friendly with the Maharaja of Jaipur who
allowed him to use the famous Amber Place as the background for the Flames
of Flesh, and also loaned horses and elephants. Several dozen people travelled to
Jaipur for the filming. When the film opened in Calcutta, Debaki Bose sat behind
the screens directing a group who made sound ellects of crowds and horses
hooves. It was the beginning of a career that would span decades. A devout
Vaishnavite, he used the medium of film to express love. He said “only love can
bring about fruitation in all human efforts, including the making of films.” As
we shall see, the sound film, especially through its resources of music, was to give
him the opportunity to emerge as one of India s most notable directors, though
in the end he despaired of the way the industry had developed.

The same year that Debaki Bose was born so was another man, who -would also
have a tremendous impact on early film-making in India, except that he was born
more than 1200 miles away on the west coast of India, and his achievements brought
the spotlight back to Bombay. Unlike Bose or Ganguly, his senior by five years, his
entry into films was more by accident but he was helped by the fact that economic
changes brought about by the First World War had had a huge impact on Bombay,
generating much money, some of which came into the film industry.

The film-maker was Chandulal J. Shah, who was born in 1898, in Jamnagar,
not far from Porbander, Gandhi s birthplace. He studied at Sydenham College in
Bombay and prepared for a career in business. After graduation, while looking
for a job, he worked for a time with his brother D. J. Shah, who had written
mythological films for several rising Bombay producers.

It was a time of tension and hunger but also ol enterprise. The First World
War had stimulated Indian business and industry. Before the war, the British had
generally discouraged Indian enterprise. As a colonised country, India s purpose
was to provide raw materials and a market for British goods. But the First World
War forced changes. The strain on British manufacturing made it desperately
important that Indian industrialisation be speeded up. An Indian Munitions Board
was set up in 1917 to make India in large measure “the arsenal for the allies in the
Near East.” India thus became an expanding source of steel rails, clothing, boots,

Growing Under the Banyan Tree

and tent and jute goods. All this brought economic expansion to various areas,
e.specially to the port of Bombay .Some of this money now began to come into the
intant film industry. Business had always invested in films; Phalke had got money
from a textile manufacturer who funded Hindustan Films; lagdish, another new
company of this period, was funded by a cotton merchant, while Calcutta Eastern
Films Syndicate was launched with money from a hair oil manufacturer. Among
the Bombay inv'estors, were the ow-ners of theatres who were, by now, competing
vigorously for new' films, especially the better Indian films.

In 1924, Shah had got a job on the Bombay Stock Exchange and settled
down to a life of commerce, which is what he wanted. But the following year
he heard that the Imperial Theatre was desperate for a film to be launched in the
week of the Muslim Festival of Id. This was still a month away and Shah, aided
by his brother’s reputation and by his own vague association wdth his brother’s
mythological films, offered to have a film ready. The theatre agreed to advance
Rs 10,000, half the usual budget for a 6000 feet long Bombay feature of that
time. Within a few d.ays, shooting for the film started. After a couple of weeks, the
theatre made enquiries regarding the progress; Shah assured them that the movie
would be ready in time. It was now that the theatre manager learnt that Shah
was not making a mythological, but a story set against a modern background.
He was sure that a modern Indian story wouldn’t run and kept pleading for a
mythological which would at least run for a month. But by then it was too late
to start again. Shah delivered the movie, called Fimla, within the deadline and
later in an interview recollected that it ran for ten weeks.

The following year, a similar crisis confirmed Shah as a film producer. He was
watching a matinee at Bombay Opera House when he was called from his seat.The
call was from his solicitor friend. Amarchand Shroff, on behalf of the Kohinoor Film
Company. Set up by Dwarkadas Sampat. who kept a tiger for a pet, the film company
had by then an extraordinary history and sevei al rebirths. Sampat was nothing if not
brave and ingenious. He was always willing to e.xperiment, alw'avs willing to dare. In
one film, Sat Ansuya, he had introduced a naked lady, Sakinabhai, which somehow
got past the censor although when another film, Bhakta Vidur, touched politics and. in
particular, the .struggle against the British for India s freedom, the censors banned it.
Then, in 1923, there was a fire which destroyed all the negative materials of the films
and Sampat, who had turned some of the spacious grounds of the studio into a zoo,
watched the flames billowing up accompanied by his pet, a young tiger. However, by
1926 Sampat, helped by Eastman Kodak, had regrouped and brought together several
new directors, including Homi Master. It was problems with Master that had led to
the summons to Shah.

Homi Master had fractured his ankle and in his agony kept asking for Shah.That
evening Shah visited Master at the ho.spital. The latter took a script from under
his pillow. He told Shah that the script was his life’s ambition, the climax of his
career and told Shah to finish it. Shah refused at first but was told that the beautiful

Bollywood: A History

Miss Gohar was starring in it.Though he had no interest in the love story, he was
certainly interested in the heroine and with the deadline twenty-one days away, he
undertook to fulfil the contract with Imperial, but wrote in a new situation and
started work the next day. He worked every day and, as footage became available,
edited at night. In what would soon become the great film traditions of Bombay,
he finished before the deadline, despite running a 104° fever.

The film Typist Girl featured not only Gohar but also an Anglo-Indian girl,
Ruby Meyers, who later became famous as Sulochana and has been described as
the first sex symbol of the Indian screen.This was followed the next year by Gun
Sundari (‘Why husbands go astray’), the script for which was written by Shah and
was a milestone in the rise of the Indian social movie. Indians were just about
getting used to social movies. Tackling as they did contemporary problems, they
were disturbing to some, and exciting to others, but path-breaking nonetheless.
The plot of Gun Sundari was astonishingly modern. The film dealt with a married
couple.The dutiful wife slaves at home the whole day and, later at night, when the
husband comes home brings the household problem to the bedroom.The husband,
already burdened with work, does not want more problems and thus turns towards
a dancing girl. One evening, when he is dressed to go out, the wife asks him where
he is going and he says nowadays the wife doesn’t ask the husband such questions.
A week later she, too, is dressed, and the husband gets a similar reply. The message
was that the wife need not be just a dutiful woman, but was also a companion. In
1934, Shah was to remake it as talkie in three different Indian languages and each
time it was a box office success. It also began for him an association with Gohar,
which was to last throughout a long professional career.

These two movies put the social movie on an equal footing with the
mythological, at least for urban India. But Shah’s success created jealousy and he
left Kohinoor, along with Miss Gohor, first for Jagdish Films, where he made
four films and then formed his own company, Shri Ranjit Film Company, with
finance from Vithaldas Thakoredas. Ranjit made films for over three decades. In
three years between 1929 and 1932, and the arrival of sound, Ranjit produced
more than thirty films. The arrival of sound changed many things, and made
Ranjit for a time even bigger. In the 1930s, it employed so many stars that it
boasted, “There are more stars in Ranjit than in heaven.” Shah in time would
become a leading figure of the Indian film industry, the first President of the
Film Federation of India, arrange both the Silver Jubilee and Golden Jubilee
celebrations, and lead a delegation to Hollywood. But he never lost his love for
the stock exchange or the horses. This would prove his undoing. By the time he
died in 1975, not only was the Indian film industry very different to the one he
had reluctantly entered — due to an accident to a director — but Shah was so poor
that he was reduced to travelling around Bombay on buses and trains.

The stories of Ganguly, Bose and Shah showed how quickly things moved in
those days of the Indian cinema, how individuals came together, and how new

Growing Under the Banyan Tree

units where formed in which individuals from older companies were brought
together by new capital. But there were many others who dreamt the cinematic
dreams of Ganguly, Bose and Shah but did not get the chance to realise them;
men who fell by the wayside, and they number in their thousands. Without
sufficient funds, equipment or talent, they could not survive the vagaries of
filmdom, a story that would be repeated often over the decades.

In the year 1926, when Shah made Typist Girl, another Bombay film-maker
launched a new film company which not only achieved legendary status as a
producer of silent movies, but also had the notable distinction of making the first
Indian talkie. This film-maker was three years older than Shah and working not
many miles away from him. He can claim to have made a bigger impact and be
a true giant of the early Indian screen, comparable to Phalke and Madan.

Ardeshir Irani, a Parsi like Madan, was born in 1885, and started out in his
family business of musical instruments. But he grew restless, and went into the
distribution of foreign films before joining tent showman, Abdulally EsoofaUy,
in buying the Alexandra cinema in 1914; he then built the Majestic Cinema,
four years later. Exhibition profits edged the partners towards production. After
involvement in several other companies, they launched the Imperial Film Company
in 1926 and built a studio for it on Kennedy Bridge, near Bombay’s Royal Opera
House. By the time the silent era had ended, it had produced sixty-two films. But
its claim to history is that in 1931 this company won the Indian talkie race by
releasing Alam Ara at Bombay’s Majestic Cinema on 14 March 1931.

The conditions for making the movie could not have been more discouraging.
The equipment Irani obtained from the United States was virtually junk; it was
a single system Tanar recording system, unlike the later double system which
allows for separate negatives for picture and sound. It also involved hiding
microphones, as Irani later recalled to Garga, “in incredible places to keep them
out of camera range:”

There were no sound-proof studios... we preferred to shoot indoors. Our studios
were located near a railway track, with trains passing every few minutes, so most of
our shooting was done when trains ceased operations.

This style of film-making, making it up as you go along, had quite astonished
Wilford Denning, the American technician who had come to Bombay to put
the equipment together. He also gave some impromptu lessons to Irani and his
assistant, Rustom Bharucha. A year later, in June 1932, Denning, interviewed
about his experiences by the American Cinematographer, could barely conceal his
wonder that in the conditions prevafiing at Imperial, a sound picture got made:

Film was successfully exposed in light that would result in blank film at home;
stages consisted of flimsy uprights supporting glasses or cloth roof or covering. The

rum was successtuuy exposed in light that would result in blank film at home;
stages consisted of flimsy uprights supporting glasses or cloth roof or covering. The

Bollywood: A History

Growing Under the Banyan Tree

French DeBrie Camera, with a few Bell & FTowell Cierman makes, completed the
list of photographic equipment. Throughout, the blindest groping for fundamental
facts was evident. The laboratory processing methods, with sound in view, were
most distressing, and obviomsly the greatest problem.

Alam Ara has never been described as an artistic triumph and not a single reel
has been preserved. Many of those who acted in this first Indian talkie have long
been forgotten except one, Prithviraj Kapoor, whose Kapoor clan would became
the first family of the Indian cinema and spawn four generations of Kapoor,
many of whom are still very influential in Bollywood.

The origins of the film, reflecting Irani’s background, were in a Paris theatre,
where it had been a successful stage play. The story was a familiar one, dealing
with a king who had two wives, the wicked one who was childless, while the
good wife bore him a son.The machinations of the wicked queen, and how they
are ultimately defeated, leading to a happy ending, formed the plot. But if, as
Garga says, the plot was “banal,” its impact was astonishing.

Irani’s partner, Esoofally, would later recall the electric excitement this first
Indian talkie produced:

Iranis faith in India's capacity to make talkies was soon being justified. The
year he released Alan Ara, twenty-two other Hindi films appeared and all seemed
to have made money. Also in 1931, three films in Bengali, one in Tamil and one
in Telegu, appeared in their respective language areas. The next year brought
eight films in Marathi, two in Gujerati and the following year seventy-five Hindi
features were produced. Virtually all the films made money.

By 1933 f trepidation over the coming of sound had given way to unbounded
optimism. That year, the compiler of Who is Who in Indian Filmland, in a jubilant
preface, gave expression to this sense of unexpected Indian achievement:

'What with scanty resources, stepmotherly Government aid, with keen
competition from privileged foreign films, with few technically- qualified men,
with no interested capitalists, with less interested fans, with actors and actresses
scarcely able to spell their names, with no market except India, with censuring
censors, with discouragement to the right, cheap sneers to the left, despair in front,
and criticism from behind, the Indian film industry, thank God, has marched on and
on to the field of victory, battling against a thousand other misfortunes. Has she not
made a giant stride?

Imagine our surprise when we found that on the day of the release, surging
crowds started gathering near the Majestic Cinema right from early morning, and it
was with considerable difficulty that we ourselves could enter the theatre. In those
days the queue system was not known to film-goers and the booking officer was
literally stormed by jostling, riotous mobs, hankering to secure—any how—a ticket
to see a talkie in the language they understood. Adi traffic was jammed and police
aid had to be sought to control the crowds. For weeks together, tickets were sold
out, and black-market vendors had a field day.

The black-market price saw four anna tickets being sold for Rsq or Rss, a
colossal hike, and this was repeated when units went on tour with the film and
drew huge crowds outside Bombay.

For the audience, the defects of the movie did not matter. To many it proved
that India, too, could produce talkies, and as one admiring viewer put it, if the
recording of sound was not quite perfect that was only “due to the inexperience
of the players in facing the microphone and a consequent tendency to talk too
loudly.”

Irani, who, six years after Alam Ara, also produced the first Indian colour
film, Kisan Kanya, had great faith in India’s capacity to make sound films. He
was keen that the Government should ensure that 50% of all films shown were
Indian ones and was convinced that India could progress in the cinematic world,
not by importing foreign talent, as the Madans had done, but “by sending our
young men abroad.”

The arrival ot sound had also brought song and dance—in part derived from a
tradition of folk music-drama—and this played an important role in winning for
the sound film an instant and widening acceptance. As the 1938 edition of The
Indian cinematograph Year Book, noted, “With the coming of the talkies, the Indian
motion picture came into its own as a definite and distinctive piece of creation.
This was achieved by music.”

The reference to music is very important. Initially, there were some in India
who were worried by this obsession with music, seeing it as a hazard to script
values. As The Journal of the Motion Picture Society of India would put it, “Cases of
singing before drawing a sword for a fight are not uncommon.” But this reliance
on music, which in time would make music not only integral to Bollywood
movies but also sometimes its master, was in fact a preview of the change that
was coming into Indian movies as a result of the introduction of sound. In time,
it would lay the foundations for the very distinctive development of Bollywood,
taking it away from Hollywood and marking the very different world of the
Hindi cinema.

It is interesting to note how in the decade before the arrival of sound the
Indian movie industry had not developed its own style and unashamedly copied
Hollywood s silent movies, including promoting them as Indian versions of
Hollywood movies. The arrival of Douglas Fairbanks’ The Thief of Baghdad in
Bombay, which took the city by storm, lead to much imitation. It is widely seen
as Hollywood’s most flamboyant silent movie, where Fairbanks leaps and grins,
stealing everything except love. Released in America in 1924, it got to Bombay

Bollywood: A History

in 1925, and so enchanted everyone that "File Bombay Chronicle saw it “as one of
the permanent features of the city.”

As it was being shown in Bombay, Bhogilal K.M. Dave, who had been
manager of Phalke’s Hindustan Film Company, a former partner of Irani, and a
graduate of the New York Institute of Photography, was setting up the Sharda
Film Company. Working with Nanabhai Desai, a well-known film-maker, and
backed by funds from businessman Mayashankar Bhatt, who had also financed
Phalke and Irani, Dave, a master of the camera, made some of the best silent
Indian films of this era. He had no qualms about presenting his heroes as India’s
answer to Hollywood. So Master Vithal, who was an acrobat, but could fence,
ride, fight and also play the lover, was billed as the ‘Indian Douglas Fairbanks’.
He featured in a number of successful silent movies of Sharda. He was also to be
the male lead in Alam Ara, a performance that won praise from critics. As Erik
Barnouw and S. Krishnaswamy have put it, “The drama lay in the transfer to an
Indian world of elements ofWestern life—or, more accurately, ofWestern film.”

The copying of Hollywood did not take place without debate, but this debate
was taking place against a wider debate about the entire role of foreign movies
in India. What to do with foreign movies was always a problem for the Indian
film-makers, all the more so as India was ruled by foreigners who, while never
forgetting they were foreigners, also saw India as their eternal possession and not
only argued that they were better able to rule India than the natives, but that
they knew and understood India better than the Indians, certainly the educated
Indians. Not surprisingly these foreigners were keen to maintain their dominant
economic position and their moral authority to rule the country. The rise of
Hollywood as the major force in world cinema posed a threat on both fronts.

If the early British concern about Holl^nvood centred round the commercial
effect this was having on the sale of British films in India, soon there was an
even greater concern about the prestige and moral authority of the white race,
so crucial in the Raj’s eyes to maintaining its rule in India.

As we have seen, the rise of America as the world’s cinematic super-power, was
one of the results of the First World War, a war which saw no fighting in India but
which had a profound impact on the Indian political world, Indian fife and Indian
cinema. Although essentially a European civil war, whose causes were mysterious
to most Indians, Indians rallied to the help of their British masters both with
money and blood. Gandhi, the pacifist, won a medal for his war effort, and Indian
money helped pay for the war with ^ 100 million given outright to Britain for the
war and j/j20m-,,(j3om annually for each of the five war years. 1.2 million Indians
were part of the war effort, 800,000 of them as fighters, with Indians fighting on
the Western front, in GaUipoU (where they did better there than the Austrahans
and the New Zealanders), East Africa, Egypt, the Persian Gulf, Mesopotamia, Persia
and the Trans-Caspian and Caucasian regions south of Russia, either defending the
empire or extending it. Indian troops were decisive in the batdes of the Middle

and the Trans-Caspian and Caucasian regions soutfi or is,ussia, eitner oerenoing cne
empire or extending it. Indian troops were decisive in the batdes of the Middle

Growing Under the Banyan Tree

East and the creation of modern day Iraq owes much to Indian soldiers and, for
a time during the British occupation in the 1920s, the rupee was the currency of
that country. The end of the war also brought untold suffering to India, resulting
in the biggest collateral damage of the war. Towards the end of the First World
War, influenza broke out in the trenches. The Indian troops fighting there caught
the disease and carried it back to India. But the war had made the British denude
India of doctors and, as the returning Indian soldiers spread the disease, there was
htde or no medical care available. Sixteen million Indians died, almost double the
numbers killed in the battlefields of the war.

Political India emerged from the war expecting the British to grant them
the sort of self-dominion they had granted their white colonies. But India, a
brown country, was to be treated very differently. Less than six months after
the war ended. General Reginald Dyer ordered his troops to shoot an unarmed
crowd of Indians that had gathered in an Amritsar garden, killing nearly 400 and
wounding more than 1500, including women and children. For good measure,
he forced Indians to crawl on their bellies through a street in Amritsar and had
many Indians whipped. It was the worst atrocity committed by the British in the
twentieth century. After that, any chance of Indians trusting the British to behave
decently was gone. Tagore gave back his knighthood and Gandhi turned from a
collaborator to being the greatest rebel the empire had ever seen, launching the
first of his civil disobedience movements to free his enslaved countrymen.

The horrible killing-stick General Dyer had wielded had been followed by a carrot
of sorts. Two years after the Amritsar massacre came the reforms of 1921 which put
into place a certain amount of democratic machinery at the local level. Indians could
now run the Calcutta Corporation and, in certain provinces, some departments
were transferred to Indian control, in various others British officen, for the first
time, worked under Indian ministers. However, these measures were combined with
others, which left real power in the hands of the British Government.The'system was
called dyarchy and while the essential super-structure of white supremacy was not
altered, the changes reflected the paternalism of the Raj, a desire for the father, who
knew everything, trying to instil some of his vast knowledge into a difficult child and
get him to accept some rules of what he felt was decent, civihsed behaviour.

But this was where Hollywood posed such a threat to the Raj. For at a
stroke it threatened to change the very ideas of what had been presented as the
great virtues of white. Western, civilisation. The cornerstone of the Raj was the
belief in the prestige and higher moral authority of the white races, considered
essential for the continuance of white rule in India. India, after all, had only a few
thousand Britons ruling a country of nearly 350 million. This could survive as
long as the natives believed that the white man was always right. To control the
Empire, the mystique of the white Sahib had been built up: whatever happened,
all dark skins paled in front of that solitary white one. In some ways, an even
greater mystique of the white woman was built up. In the British Raj, not only

vioin. SKjiu p<ueu iii iiom tji uiai solitary wnite one. m some ways, an even
greater mystique of the white woman was built up. In the British Raj, not only

Bollywood: A History

Growing Under the Banyan Tree

was the white woman put on a pedestal, but every effort was made to ensure
no Indian in a public place ever saw a white woman unless she was dressed in a
manner considered suitable for her status as the high priestess of the Raj. Nirad
Chaudhuri, in his autobiography Thy Hand, Great Anarch!, describes how in
1925, when he went to Puri, a seaside resort on the Bay of Bengal, he was told
off for walking too near a beach where some white women were swimming:

It should be kept in mind that in those days swimming costumes were not what
they are today. Nonetheless, a policeman was standing there to protect the modesty
of these white women from our gaze. This man came up to me and said that when
the MemSahibs are bathing no Indian was aUowed to walk on the beaches or be
within observable distance. So 1 must go up to the roads above. Of course, I had to.

Anything that undermined the supposed superiority of the white races in the eyes
of their brown subjects was considered very dangerous. Indians watching Hollywood
movies could see that the whites, back in their own homelands, did not quite behave
as their British masters said they did and this alarmed the ofEciaLs of the Raj. In 1922,
H. L. Stephenson, the chief secretary to the Government of Bengal, discussing the
need to tighten censorship of American films, wrote about scenes in which, ‘white
men and women [are] shown in a state of extreme drunkenness in order to portray
the degradation caused by drink. Such scenes do not convey the moral idea of
Western manners and ideals.’ In 1926, a well-known Bishop, intimately acquainted
with India, in a speech at a conference in England, had warned:

I’he majority of the films, which are chiefly from America, are of sensational and
daring murders, crimes, and divorces and, on the whole, degrade the white women
in the eyes of the Indians.

On October 6, 1927, the day The Jazz Singer was released in New York, the
Government of India announced the appointment of a committee of enquiry,
the Indian Cinematograph Committee. The need to preserve the image of the
white man and woman was paramount as the Government explained:

Letters and articles have appeared from time to time in the British Press
asseverating that much harm was being done in India by the widespread exhibition
ofWestern tiims. We have seen several of these press comments from 1923 onwards.
The general trend of them is that, owing to difference of customs and outlook,
films are misunderstood and tend to discredit Western civilisation in the eyes of the
masses in India. Such criticism was chiefly directed against “cheap American films.”

The Indian Cinematographic Committee was instructed to study the adequacy of
censorship as practiced in India and the need for stricter measures. But the committee

had a dual role. As always with the British and their empire, anxieties about moral
values were coupled with commercial considerations. If the Government hoped
that the committee would make recommendations to ensure that Hollywood films
did not damage the god-hke status of the white man, and in particular the white
woman, there was also the commercial motive of finding solutions that would help
promote British films or what were called Empire films:

At the same time the question has been raised by a resolution of the Imperial
Conference of 1926 whether the various parts of the Empire could take any steps
to encourage the exhibition of Empire films. As all Governments of the Empire
have been invited to consider this question, it appeared to the Govt, of India that it
would be appropriate that it should be examined by the proposed Committee. This
extension of the scope of the Committee’s enquiry would also enable it to address
itself to a question which may have a far reaching influence on the development of
the cinematograph in India, namely, the possibility of encouraging the production
and exhibition of Indian films.

The year this committee was set up back home in England, efibrts had been
made to bolster the domestic film industry and try to curb the power of Hollywood.
The Cinematograph Films Act of 1927 was described as “an act to restrict bhnd
booking and advance booking of cinematograph films, and to secure the renting
and exliibition of a certain proportion of British films, and for purposes connected
therewith.” For British theatres the quota was to start at 5% and in a few years rise to
20%. Its purpose was achieved with remarkable speed. In 1926, Britain had produced
twenty-six feature films. Production rose to 128 in 1929, and to 153 in 1932.

The British did not entirely succeed m fooling Indians as to why this
committee had been set up, and many Indians denounced it as trying to preserve
the Policeman’s prestige.” This led some English newspapers in India to try to
convince Indians that the committee could prove beneficial and, indeed, might
be a way of getting back against an American writer called Katherine Mayo, who
had much outraged the Indians.

In 1925, Mayo had gone to India and written a book called Mother India.
Mayos views were what we would now call white supremacist racist, but then
were considered mainstream American conservative: hostile to immigrants,
blacks, and Catholics, Mayo saw American rule as bringing great benefit to the
Philippines and supported the Asian Exclusion Acts, passed to encourage white
European immigrants, and discourage darker-skinned people.

Mayo’s book was meant to justify British rule in India and argued that the problem
with India was not that it was not free, but the awful Hindu rehgion and, in particular,
the Hindu males, who terrorised Hindu women. It later emerged that Mayo had hed
in the book about not having had any help fiom the Raj; indeed she had plenty fiom
the Raj’s intelligence agency. The Raj saw the book as a way of attacking the Indian

Bollywood; A History

Growing Under the Banyan Tree

freedom movement and, in particular, Gandhi, in America. Gandhi called it “the
report of a dram inspector sent out with the one purpose of opening and examining
the drains of the country to be reported upon, or to give a graphic description of
the stench exuded by the opened drains.” Other Indians were so outraged, that in the
next two years some fifty books were written denouncing Mayo.

The English-owned Times of India decided to invoke Mayo in recommending
The Indian Cinematographic Committee to its readers:

There is no reason why India should take up the cudgels for the white races by
banning misleading films. But there is another side to it. Indians feel grateful to
English people who expose the wrong perspective of Miss Mayo’s catch ha’penny
bit of American yellow journalism about this country. English people would be
similarly grateful to them tor setting their faces against American yellow filmisms,
which set a wrong perspective upon Western ways and customs.

The Indian Cinematographic Committee reflected the benign paternalism
that the British wanted to project. It consisted of three British and three Indian
members. One of the Indians, Diwan Bahadur T. Rangachariar, a prominent
lawyer from Madras, was the chairman of the committee. The remit of the
committee had been well worded. The phrase “Empire films” was elusive and
the committee members were urged to consider both British and Indian films.
Gandhi had raised the aspect of the threat posed to India by the West saying,
“India’s salvation consists in unlearning what she has learned during the last
fifty years. The railways, telegraphs, lawyers, doctors and such like have all to go.”
The committee was now asked to consider whether “such like” did not include
“Western films chiefly from America.”

The committee had no power to decide, but it could study and report. The
committee took this task seriously and it launched a massive study into all aspects
of film production, distribution and exhibition in India, public reaction to them
and the operation of Governmental supervision to them. There were hearings in
a dozen cities, more than 9,400 miles were travelled, 353 witnesses questioned,
4,325 questionnaires issued, forty-five cinemas visited, thirteen film studios
inspected, fifty-seven feature films, including thirty-one Indian films, viewed,
and Rs 193,900 spent.

The committee recorded that its witnesses had included 114 Europeans,
Anglo-Indians and Americans, and 239 Indians. Of the Indians, 157 were Hindus
and 82 non-Hindus, the latter included 38 Muslims, 25 Parsis, 16 Burmese, 2
Sikhs and i Christian. It also noted that it had examined 35 ladies, 16 Europeans
and 19 Indians.The findings of the committee were published in May 1928.

Among the film industry" witnesses were, apart from Phalke and Madan, many
of the early giants of the Indian cinema, such as Dhiren Ganguly, Alex Hague,
Sulochana and Himansu Rai, the man who founded one of India’s greatest-

ever studios. Other witnesses included representatives of American companies,
censorship officials and Indian exhibitors.

The problems of Indian film producers were illuminated by many wimesses. Several
film-makers were producing, or trying to produce, a schedule of a dozen productions
a year. A six week production schedule was considered normal for a feature. Bombay
considered Rs20,ooo a proper budget, although some films had cost more. Calcutta
and Madras felt that Rsio,ooo to Rsi5,ooo was the practical limit. Companies were
paying actors between RS30 to Rsi,ooo per month.The RS30 salary was for extras;
average actors got Rs2oo-Rs250 per month. A normal star’s salary was Rs6oo-Rs8oo,
while a few received a bit more.

In Bombay, producers were already beginning to consider Punjabis the most
suitable specimen for film acting. Phalke had talked about the looks required for
acting, saying that the Punjabi, upper-class Hindu male is the most suitable and this
trend continued throughout. Heroines, of course, could be from alt over, especially
Bengal and the South.

Stars were rapidly becoming idols. One woman star, Sultana, used to receive
baskets of fruits from distant admirers. In Calcutta, a few ladies “of better classes”
had acted in movies but most producers drew on “prostitute and dancing
girls” who had lost their early reluctance to enter the cinema. The committee,
concerned about the well-being of the industry, pursued this matter at every stop.
One exchange with a witness on this subject W'ent as follows:

Q. Do you think that the present conditions in your studio are satisfactory, and
sufficient to attract respectable actors and actresses?

A . Oh yes, we are catering for respectable actors and actresses.

Q. I mean what arrangements are made to house them?

A. We keep the respectable characters in separate rooms and they remain quite aloof
from the others.

The relation between the press and cinema also received attention. The
committee noted that while newspapers carried critiques of foreign films, there
were hardly any of Indian films. And it was very clear that film reviews were not
independent critical assessments but puff pieces, masquerading as reviews. An
exchange with a Bombay editor went as follows:

If I may frankly confess to you, all newspapers get critique paragraphs typewritten
from the exhibitors themselves.That is my frank confession.

Q. In the case of foreign films, they get it from the foreign producers, ready-made?

A. Ready-made, cut and dry, only to be sent down to the printer.

Bollywood; A History

Q. Suppose you criticise a picture honestly?

A. Our trade is so closely interwoven with the interest of the producers and
exhibitors that we cannot possibly think of doing so.

The working of censorship of course got major attention. Under the legislation
of 1918—the Indian Cinematograph Act—and the amendments of 1919 and 1920,
the control of cinemas and the censorship of films had been made provincial
“reserved” subjects, and placed under pohce jurisdiction. In Bombay, Calcutta and
Madras, boards of censors had been set up in 1920 to assist the Commissioner of
Police in this censorship. A Punjab board had been organised in 1927. Each of these
boards could license a film to show throughout India or at anytime uncertify it. A
film could also be uncertified at any time for any city by its pohce commissioner or
for any province by the provincial authority. As we have seen Razia Begum, which
had angered the Nizam of Hyderabad, was banned in several cities.

The make-up of the Boards and their procedure reflected the communal
balance which the British were so keen to maintain. The Calcutta Board, for
example, had a Hindu and a Muslim member, along with a British military man
and a British woman. The chairman was the Police Commissioner of the City
concerned, and he was always British.The result was that in a British versus India
clash, the British members had a majority.

The work oF censorship was largely done by two inspectors, an Indian and a
Briton. Each film was seen by one Inspector.The board generally certified on his
recommendation. If he foresaw problems, members of the board had a look at
the film.The paid inspectors,before recommending a license, often asked for cuts
from the producers or distributors and quite often this had to do with subtitles.
But most producers said little by way of protest.

Indians already had experience of how censorship could work. So, back in
1921, the year Gandhi launched his first civil disobedience campaign, Sampat
had run into problems with his film, Bhatka Vidur. The main character, played
by Sampat himself, resembled Gandhi in appearance and was portrayed as a
man who survived the oppressions inflicted on him. But, while the film was
a success in Bombay, it was banned by the District magistrate of Karachi, who
concluded, “It is hkely to excite disaffection against the Government and incite
people to non-cooperation.” He saw it as “a thinly-veiled resume of political
events in India,Vidhur, appearing as Mr Gandhi, clad in Gandhi cap and khaddar
(Indian home-spun cloth that he had urged Indians to wear instead of Lancashire
cotton) shirt. The intention of the film is to create hatred and contempt and stir
up feelings of enmity against the Government.” In other cases some censors had
banned films for being vulgar and too American.

The European witnesses argued strongly for stricter censorship, particularly of
films that were bringing Western society into contempt and undermining Indian
respect for Western women.

Growing Under the Banyan Tree

Indian witnesses also felt that it was essential to have strong censorship in India
but their reasons were different. One reason given was communal tension, the
other was that many felt that foreign films were encouraging crimes in India. A
recent rise in motor car dacoities” were mentioned by several witnesses. Still
others spoke about the hugging and kissing” in Western films as demoralising.
Many favoured censorship of “love scenes.”

But there were odd voices in favour of freedom, in particular a spirited
statement made by A. Venkatarama Iyer, B.A. LLB., of Madurai who, like many
Indians educated in the English system, showed how much Indians relied on
British models to argue their case:

1 think every member of this committee believes in the freedom of speech and
freedom of opinion. I believe that all must have read John Milton’s Aeropagiiica. I
believe also that British citizenship is a thing founded upon liberty. I think that
classical works are characteristically great because there is freedom of expression and ’
boldness of conception. Fetters, even though they are made of gold, are still fetters.
Censorship is cold, critical, routine-like, and tyranntius'arid inspires fear ih the
budding genius to express himself The business of censor is more to'prohibif rather '
than appreciate a work of art.Thc’ very name savours'of a siek^mgre’strictibri.'anti ' '
it is the hand of death'if it touches a'IvOrk'6F art. ' ‘-.i

•But there were views o^bsed to This;-^ ' '• • :

' Unduly interfere with the artistic ahd irispiratibnal development? This is bosh.
There is neither art nor inspiration in such pictures. They are gross and vlil^'r, ■ * -

' Th May'1928, the Committee subinitted ks report!. As iiisfructfed, it ifiade
rfidbmmfenditaofrs cm; ' ' '4 ; .■ h . i ■' . . j ; '

ThfadeqUady ofeerisorship ’ ■

'■"‘lihperial preference' '■ ' •" ; “ ■!;

€)tt the ifrattef of cehsorship, it- to'bk a balm tone,-'expressing the opinion
thkt ■ Indian ybiith \Vis' 'riot being demoralised' and that' the alarn*' about filrtis’
itfrpacCwas' exarggeVatedf It- emphasised that many of the ekp’resfrbns of allintt
hid ^iginated outside the country, and suggested that they had cofrie to a large
extent from people'motivated by ■ thbir bwii'special infefests arid perhaps not
fuUy 'm toubh' with'the facts. As to the-adecjiiaeV of cerisorShipy the"'corhinittee
expressed itlelfsatisfied.Tt'madethe bautiOtis cbmtrtbht that'kob miieh'teWdetness
li'bestbfrf^d bn- comrrtutial,'racial; ^Kti'cbl 'and"ev'en"cbloUf xbfisideraticms.”Tc
ikfegestbd' *frh9'i'bberi-mtfCh' tende’rne'ssTd^friVoIbtia bbjedtioris 'K rtioffe -likcly'tb
encourage dissensions.” -imz .nio - ji .-rnii; '1,.

Bollywood; A History

On the matter of “empire films” it noted;

If too much exhibition of American films in the country is a danger to the
national interest, too much of other Western films is as much a danger. The British
social drama is as much an enigma to the average Indian audience as the American.

With these words, the idea of imperial preference was pushed aside. But
the committee went further. It suggested various measures including a cinema
department under the Indian Ministry of Commerce to look after the industry’s
interest, a Governmental film library, to utilise the educational values of films, a
Governmental film finance fund, and a plan to encourage building of cinemas.

But the committee’s recommendations were not unanimous. The British
members of the committee were under constant pressure firorn their fellow Britons,
or Europeans, as they styled themselves in India. A certain Captain Malins, who was
on a worldwide mission to promote British films, had got a resolution passed at a
meeting in Calcutta that “the American film monopoly constitutes a menace to
India.”This had prompted the classic riposte from Rangachariar, the chairman; “If
too much exhibition of American films is a danger to national interest, too much
exhibition of other Western films is as much a danger.”

The result was that the British members penned a dissenting minute, fearing
the Government might otherwise have to act on the report. This provided the
perfect excuse for the Government of India to completely ignore the report. Not
one of the recommendations was enacted into law. However, some of the ideas
would be reincarnated many years later by the film enquiry committee set up
by Independent India.

The inquiry did have one significant impact. Nearly all the prominent men
in the Indian film industry had given evidence. They had heard what George
Mooser, the Universal Picture Company representative for South Asia, had
told the committee. He had dismissed the idea that India was important for
Hollywood, only 2% of Hollywood’s overseas earnings coming from India. He
was scathing about the primitive film-making techniques used, the poor standards
of acting and scenarios, and the wretched standards of Indian films. None of
this would have surprised the Indians. What they found more interesting was
Mooser’s advice; establish an infrastructure similar to Hollywood and create a
well-organised distribution network. Ardeshir Irani, and others from Bombay,
who heard this advice, clearly took it to heart as they sought to create a studio
system in Bombay, similar to the one by then flourishing in Los Angeles.

And if the inquiry achieved nothing, it had come at a seminal moment for the
Indian film industry. The coming of sound not only changed what the audience
saw but also the way films were made and Indian cinema, for aU the British
warnings about the evils of Hollywood, was set to follow the Hollywood model
of making films, at least for some time.

Part II

When Bollywood was like
Hollywood; The Studio Era

I Mavericks, Eccentrics, Bigamists

In 1933, a book was published called. Who is Who in Indian Filmland. This
listed the number of companies that had sprung up, a handful of which still
remained.They had come up all over India: Bombay, Calcutta, Kolhapur, Madras,
Hyderabad, Lucknow, Gaya, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Peshawar, Secunderabad, and

N^^Ppoil s'

Ondistidg tKe.'vanished companies, the editor had great fun putting a cryptic
comment after the name. For Bombay, it listed Oriental Pictures Corporation
(this hadp short lift),Young Indian Film Company (one picture and then it died),
jl^dish f ilm^ (d^fpncf). Excelsior Company (shut down), Suresh Film Company
(liquidated). For cdcutta, it listed Ganguly’s Indo-British Film Company (broke
up), Taj Mahal Company (short-lived). Photo Play Syndicate of India (flashed
like lightning and as quickly disappeared after their first picture. Soul of a Slave).

Many of these enterprises had started with only the sketchiest technical
preparation. A few had even started on the basis of correspondence courses
given by one or another institute in the US. Some started on the basis of one
man’s travels and observations abroad. In 1921, a young Indian in London, sought
permission to watch production at one of the studios but was asked to pay a
premium of _,0iooo, which he could not afford. He travelled to Germany, where
he secured the same privilege for a more modest Another had travelled
to the US in the hope of making such observations but could not gain entry
into the studios, and finally managed it as an extra. And, on the basis of another
man’s camera experience in the US, a Bombay company was formed which was
liquidated after the man died suddenly.

Nevertheless, excited by the medium of film, these enterprises were launched.
Their failure, however, made many observers comment that if, during the 1920s,
Indian films were getting worse, and not better, then by the end of the decade
capital, too, seemed to be drying up.

Amongst exhibitors, too, there was birth followed by a very quick death.The
number of theatres in India increased from about 150 in 1923 to about 265 in

Mavericks, Eccentrics-, Bigamists

i927.This brought a sharply-increased demand for Indian films, a demand which
could not be met. The dominance of Madan did not help, and exhibitors were
often faced with nightmare uncertainties about film supply and sometimes took
foreign films they did not want.

But, despite this, by the end of the 1920s India was making a hundred films a
year and in two years, at the end of the decade, raw film imports increased from
12,000,000 feet in 1927, to 19,000,000 in 1928-29. By the early 30s, despite the
mournful list in Who is Who in Filmland, there were several Indian film studios
which could claim to like the studios that had begun to dominate Hollywood.

It is important not to exaggerate the similarities of the studio system in the
two countries. There was no Indian equivalent of Adolph Zukor. This Jewish
immigrant from Hungary, who owned a New York nickelodeon, invested in
a film distribution company named Paramount Pictures in 1913, and three
years later merged with the Jesse L. Lasky Company, which was producing
films in Hollywood. The merged corporation consolidated its production and
distribution divisions, and audiences began seeing “Paramount Pictures.” In 1919,
Zukor floated Paramount on the stock exchange. As Neal Gabler in his book. An
Empire Of Their Oum, says, Zukor “had helped establish the industry’s bonafides
with finance.” Paramount’s early artists included directors Cecil B. DeMille and
William S. Hart, and stars such as Mary Pickford, Rudolf Valentino and Clara
Bow. Wings, the studio’s 1928 release, received the very first Academy Award
for Best Picture. And the vast new studio on Marathon Street, in Hollywood,
constructed by Zukor and Lasky, has been the home of Paramount since 1926.

The link with finance that Zukor established in America never developed
in India. Some of this can be traced to Phalke. The historian, Brian Shoesmith,
has identified three eras in the Indian film industry; the cottage industry period
from 1913 to 1924, the studio era from mid-1920s to 194.0s, and since then up to
the present times with the star the main commodity. At various times the Indian
film industry came close to being exactly like Hollywood, the closest being during
the studio era of the 30s and 40s. Indeed, as Shoesmith shrewdly observes, while
Phalke s Hindustani Film Company had aU the trappings “of a proto-studio,” this
did not represent a stake in the development of the studio era in India. What Phalke
developed was a variation of the Hindu joint family, with himself as the patriarch.
Phalke was responsible for all aspects of the film-making process and there is Little
evidence of him developing any sense of continuity or of any of the people who
worked for him going on to develop their own companies or products.”

More significantly, Phalke’s ways of raising money, reflecting the very different
circumstances prevafling in India, was not remotely like that of Zukor. Ardeshir
Irani was later to say that while Phalke may have started the relationship between
finance and film by trying to get funds from tradition^ Indian sources of
money, a relationship that lasted for much of the first decade, he did not pay any
attention to the distribution and exhibition side of the film industry. Irani, and

Bollywood: A History

other Bombay film producers, reacted to this and sought to be masters of what
they produced. This led to the rise of the studio system. But unlike America,
no corporate structure of ownership of studios developed and it was largely the
work of individuals.

In our story so far we have already seen the impact studios have made but, in
the overall history of the Indian cinema, three studios of the studio era stand out.
These are Prabhat in Poona, which started in 1929, B.N. Sircar’s New Theatres
Ltd, which started a year later in Calcutta, and perhaps, the most evocative of
them all, Himansu Rai’s Bombay Talkies, which opened its doors in Bombay in
1934. Various factors went into the creation of these studios but at the end of the
day they reflected the personal styles of their founders, and the fact that more
often in India personality, rather than wider economic, or social factors, direct
change.

New Theatres is a classic case in point. The man who founded it could be
said to have had one thing in common with a Hollywood movie Mughal like
Zukor. Zukor had started by owning a nickelodeon. Birendranath Sircar fell
in love with the idea of owning a cinema, while constructing one. He was the
son of Sir Nripendranath Sircar, the Advocate General of Bengal and, later. Law
Member of the Government of India, whose title and position indicated his
close collaboration with the Raj .Young Birendranath qualified as a civil engineer
from London and when he returned to Calcutta he busied himself constructing
various buildings in the city, taking advantage of the construction boom in the
city then. It was while he was constructing a cinema in the city that his thoughts
turned to building one for himself, which eventually led to the creation of a
studio. Ironically, the cinema he built for himself, Chitra, was inaugurated by
Subhas Chandra Bose, then the Mayor of Calcutta, but a radical firebrand, who
wanted freedom from British rule and would escape from the country during
the war to seek German, and then Japanese, help to evict the British from India.
Birendra’s father was a political opponent of Subhas but a mentor and personal
friend of Subhas’s brother, Sarat, and he often gave financial help to the Boses
when Subhas was imprisoned by the British as he often was.

It was against this complex Indian background of the 1930s that Sircar, having
first formed International Filmcraft, which produced two silent movies, set up
New Studios on February 10,1931.

Sircar, impressed by Alam Ara, acquired Tamar recording equipment and also
got the services of Wilford Denning, who was much more impressed with the
order in Calcutta, compared to the chaos of Bombay and Irani s studios. In the
same issue of The American Cinematographer, where he had been so scathing of
Bombay, Denning wrote;

Calcutta proved a complete surprise...contrasting the rushing, haphazard methods
of Bombay. Here, 1 was presented with the nucleus of what has became a real

Mavericks, Eccentrics, Bigamists

production, weU-fmanced and with an ambitious programme of producing pictures
for India actually comparable to those of the independent Hollywood companies.

Sircar, a kindly man, who loved playing billiards, created a friendly family
atmosphere in the studios. Kanan Devi, a leading actress of the time, felt that the
studio made everyone feel they were part of one big family. Many years later she
would tell Swapan MuUick:

The studio car collected us in the morning, as if we were on our way to school.
We worked the whole day and took music lessons. If there was not much work,
some of us would get together for a game of hide and seek or badminton before we
were dropped off home.

Sircar’s great skill was in spotting and gathering round him talented people.
One of them was Ganguly’s old friend, Debaki Kumar Bose. Another was P.C.
Barua, one of the most remarka’ole directors in the history of the Indian cinema.
Pramathesh Chandra Barua, son of Raja of Gauripur, was born in 1903 in
Gauripur, Assam. After graduating in 1924 from Calcutta’s Presidency College,
the young Prince left on a European tour during which he took interest in the
arts, especially films, delighting in the works of Rene Clair and Ernst Lubitsch.
After returning to India, he, like many a son from a rich family, had time on his
hands but no idea what he would do with it.

He had innumerable interests and everything came easily. An avid reader and
music lover, he was also considered outstanding as a horseman, marksman, dancer,
tennis and billiard player—he was billiard champion of Calcutta—and a hunter.
In his native Assam he had already bagged several dozen tigers and innumerable
boars—although it was said he blanched at the mere sight of a cockroach. He
was so scared of cockroaches that he once jumped out of a moving car to hold
up a train rather than suffer their presence.

During the diarchy period, he served for a time, by appointment, in the
legislative council of Assam. But the heady life of Calcutta was what he liked
best. He loved driving his Italian sports car at 9omph through the streets of
the city and he soon settled there to become involved in the film world. He
acted the part of a villain in Bhagyalaxmi, made by a newly- formed production
company, Indian Kinema Arts. He had also been involved with Ganguly, having
made a small investment in Ganguly’s British Dominion Films. When the
British Dominion Films collapsed, Barua hired Ganguly to work for him. These
'f experiences made film an incurable obsession. Returning to Europe, he got

ill permission to observe production at London’s Elstree Studios and then, after a
|k trip to Paris, where he purchased lighting equipment, he returned to Calcutta to
K, form Barua Pictures Ltd., and built a studio. It was Barua Pictures that produced
Apradhi (The Culprit). This first Calcutta Production, using artificial fights.

Bollywood; A History

Mavericks, Eccentrics, Bigamists

starred Barua, and was directed for him by Debaki Bose and was a critical success
in the last days of the silent film.

Barua could sense that the film world of Calcutta was disintegrating and he
clearly wanted to rally around him various talents set adrift by this. The problem
was Barua was no more ready for sound than Ganguly’s British Dominion had
been. His father, the Raja, angered by his son’s dalliance with the film world,
which upper-class India then considered as very low grade work, not far above
being associated with prostitutes, refused to support him financially.The Prince’s
ample allowance, help from friends and loans, had given him a start, but the
company, needed firmer financial footing and, in the end, Barua decided to
throw in his lot with New Theatres. Sircar was quick to ensure that the Prince
had the budgets required.

Barua proceeded to justify Sircar’s judgment in a sensational fashion. In 1934,
he had directed Rooplekha, but it was his 1935 production of Devdas that syt the
Indian cinema world alight and to this day remains an iconic movie. Its status
derives not only from the quality of the film but, because of the men Barua
involved in the production of the movie, which would go on to have a dramatic
effect on Indian cinema for many decades to come.

Based on a novel written in 1917 by the great Bengali writer, Sarat Chandra
Chattopadhyay, Devdas had been made as a silent movie in 1928 but this first
talkie version, adapted and directed by Barua, proved so successful that, as M.
and N.K.G. Bhanja put it in their essay. From Jamai Sasthi to Father Panchali
it “revolutionised the entire outlook of Indian social pictures.” The Bombay
Chronicle was ecstatic in its review calling it “a brilliant contribution to the Indian
film industry. One wonders as one sees it when we shall we have such another.”

In fact, over the decades that followed, Indians continued to see remakes of
this film. In 1936, the film was remade in Tamil by New Theatres and almost
every generation of Indian film-maker has made a new version of Devdas,
some in several Indian languages, including Bengali, Hindi (thrice), Telugu
(twice) and Tamil. Some of the biggest names in the Indian cinema have played
the leading role and when it was remade again in 2002 , it became one of the
most expensive BoUywood movies ever made. AH the Devdas movies have been
box-office hits.

Sarat Chandra’s novel of a tragic love affair between a rich landlord’s son and ,

a poor woman in rural Bengal had long been a literary classic. The childhood
friendship of Devdas and Paro (Parvati) blossoms into love as they grow up. J

Devdas’ father does not approve of the relationship and breaks off relations
between the families. Devdas, prevented by his family from marrying Paro, drifts 5^

in life, agrees to go away to Calcutta, where he seeks comfort with a prostitute, J

Chandramukhi, and the bottle, but finally returns to his village, where he dies. «

Barua’s genius was the way he adapted this very literary novel to the cinema, M

showing an unexpected and wonderful mastery over the new medium. He used

both sound and vision to convey emotions and feelings and there was none of
the over-the-top flourishes in showing love scenes that were so common in the
Indian cinema then.

Although a romantic-tragedy, the script for Devdas achieved a naturalness of
tone that was, in its day, almost revolutionary. When Kidar Sharma completed the
Hindi version of the Barua scenario, one comment was “This isn’t dialogue, this
is the way we talk.” This was precisely the reaction Barua wanted.

Until then, Indian cinema’s dialogue was far removed from the way common
people talked. Dramatic literature had long been associated with the language of
the courts. Perhaps for this reason, dramatists in the vernacular tended to write in
a florid style, reaching for a remoteness associated with what they perceived the
status spoken speech should achieve. But Barua had been exposed to European
naturalistic trends and wanted to discard such language. He also demanded from
his actors a quiet, natural tone. The actress Durga Khote was astonished when she
joined New Theatres to find how quietly actors delivered their lines.

There was one other major innovation in Barua’s Devdas. Its ‘tragic’ ending
was at variance with Indian classical tradition, which permitted tragic scenes to
be depicted but insisted that every play could only have a happy ending. Indian
drama had nothing to match the concept of tragedy as found m Greek drama.
Tragic endings were not used in Sanskrit drama and were even considered to be
at odds with the Hindu view of existence. The argument was a life can hardly
be interpreted as a tragedy when life is itself a transitional state. But in Bengal,
influenced by European ideas, the tragic ending was not unknown both in
Bengah literature and drama. Now Barua brought this concept to films. While
some Barua productions introduced into Indian films a note of sophisticated
humour, his major successes were romantic-tragic dramas.

Barua demonstrated how far ahead of his time he was in having such a tragic
ending for his film. Even today, Indians are not always comfortable with a film
that ends tragically. As the film director, Shyam Benegal, told me:

There is no Greek style tragedy. In Shakuntala (classic Sanskrit’s greatest play), the
tragic part is in the middle but it all ends well. Mahabharata has tragic parts but it
also ends well.There is no inevitability of tragedy that you can get in Greek drama,
that sort of thing we have never had. That does not mean we don’t have tragedy.
And we do have audiences that love tragedy but there are regional variations. I can
give you an excellent example. For instance, there was a time in the south when
they had a film made in Tamil and Mallalayam. Same film. The film made in Kerala
would have a tragic ending. The film released in Tamil Nadu had a happy ending.

It was felt the people in Kerala liked tragic endings. They thought tragic endings
were far more entertaining and satisfying than happy ones. There were many
explanations given such as in Kerala there is a very high level of literacy (almost
100% by now).

Bollywood; A History

Mavericks, Eccentrics, Bigamists

Barua made the film in two languages. In the Bengali version, which was
made first, Barua played the lead; in the Hindi remake that followed, again
directed by Barua, Devdas was played by a new recruit, Kundanlal Saigal. Both
versions were released in 1935.

Saigal had acted before in films and he would act again. He played many a lead
role in New Theatres films until the end of the decade but Devdas was significant,
not so much for Saigal’s acting but for his singing. That made him one of the
great singing stars of India and introduced a new kind of singing style. In the
process, it completely transformed Indian film music.

Saigal, who was born in Jammu of Hindu parents, had always been interested
in acting and singing, even playing the female Sita in amateur productions as a
young child. But this remained a hobby, while he first worked as a timekeeper
for the railways in Delhi and then sold Remington typewriters. It is said that
he was so fond of singing that he would burst into song while demonstrating
the typewriters, and customers would often ask him to sing before they decided
whether to purchase his typewriters. A friend took him to Calcutta and
introduced him to Sircar who, impressed with his singing voice, ofiered him
Rs 200 to join the New Theatres. This was riches for a man who at that time
earned Rs8o a month lugging Remingtons round the streets.

However, when the songs of Devdas were being filmed, an unexpected problem
arose for Saigal. He had developed a sore throat. As he began to sing his voice
cracked. The recordings were postponed but the sore throat persisted. Finally he
tried to sing the songs in a quiet, soft tone. It fitted the acting style Barua wanted,
as well as the volume hmitations of the microphone and soundtrack being used.
So, in the classic way of Indian cinema, quite by chance, was born a singing style
that soon spread all over India, and that also resembled what was then a new
Western development: the microphone crooner.

Saigal’s songs in Devdas were made into phonograph records and are stiU played
on radio stations across India. Soon the Hindusthan Recording Company got him
to record two other songs, Jkoo/na Jhulao ri on one side, and Bhajan Hori ri Brij
rajdulari on the other, and to their dehght found they had a winner. The record
sold 50,000 copies. Although Saigal died very young, at the age of forty-two, of
diabetes, caused by excessive drinking, just twelve years after Devdas was made, his
voice inspired a whole host of Bollywood singers and he is righdy considered the
father of Hindi film singing. Many of the ones who would dominate Hindi singing
over the next four decades modelled their singing style on his.Talat Mehmood,
who was himself one of the most celebrated singers in BoUywood for almost three
decades between the 50s and 70s, when asked who had inspired him said:

Oh, K.L.Saigal, easily. It was unbelievable how effirrtlessly he sang, with such talaffuz

[pronunciation], a beautiful throw of voice and depth of feeling. What voice control!

It used to make my hair stand on end hstening to him. I could never touch him.

For years, AH India Radio would end its morning musical programme with
a Saigal song and, as Manek Premchand puts it in Yesterday’s Melodies, Today’s
Memories, “this was the way many people started their day, getting out of bed, not
to the sound of twittering birds, but to the sound of Saigal’s voice.”

Saigal, himself, remained a great eccentric, as his colleague of New Theatres,
Phani Majumdar, would later recall:

K. L.Saigal once bought a motor-bike but refused to ride it himself He actually
hired a chauffeur to take him around. Finally, he decided to get a hcence, but he
could never gain any real mastery over the bike. He was always looking forward to
an opportunity to show it off to his friends.The NewTheatres Studio was just a few
furlongs from the old tram terminus in Calcutta. Saigal would wait at the terminus
every morning so he could offer someone a hft. But most of us preferred walking.
One day, I asked him to give Pankaj MuUick [a noted music composer], who was
just alighting from a tram, a ride. As I reached the studio, there came Saigal chugging
away. He was alone. I asked him where Pankaj was, and Saigal looked stunned. He
had given Pankaj a lift aU right but the man had fallen oft' the pillion somewhere
midway. Not only had Saigal not noticed that his companion had fallen off, but he’d
quite forgotten that he’d given Pankaj a lift in the first place.

Saigal’s emergence as Hindi cinema’s first great singer also coincided with an
important technical development that was to revolutionise Indian cinema. In
another New Theatres film of that same year, Dhoop Chhaon (Sun and Shade),
songs were pre-recorded for the first time. Indians call this playback singing
and soon Indian films had produced a new twist to the way songs were sung
in Indian films. In the 1930s and 405, it was the norm for actors and actresses
to both sing and act. Saigal played opposite Kanan Devi and both of them also
sang. Although Kanan Devi is now known as the “First Lady of the Bengali
Screen,” she came from a musical family and was in many ways much more of
a singer. This abihty to both act and sing was common to almost all the actors
and actresses of Saigal’s era. But within a decade this breed completely vanished,
so totally that cinemagoers of today’s BoUywood would struggle to believe they
ever existed. From the late 40s, just about the time Saigal was dying, the actors
and actresses who began to emerge could not sing and did not have to sing. And
the singers who took Saigal as their role model, like Talat, could not act and
merely sang.They recorded the songs in a recording studio and on screen, actors
and actresses mimed these songs while the pre-recorded tape was played.

Not that there was any deception involved. This was not like the scenes in the
Gene KeUy musical. Sinking in the R.aift, which shows how a HoUywood actress
of the silent era, determined to continue working in talkies, despite the fact that
she had a dreadful voice, forces a Httle known,but highly talented, actress, played
by Debbie Reynolds, to voice her lines and even sing her songs while she mimes

uy i^cyiiuius, 10 vuicc ner unes ana even sing tier songs while she mimes

Bollywood: A History

Mavericks, Eccentrics, Bigamists

in front of the screen. In the end her attempt to fool the public is exposed and we
have a happy ending with the two characters, played by Gene Kelly and Debbie
Reynolds, joyously united.

In Bollywood, once playback singing took hold, it was made clear that the
stars were not singing and the playback singers, who were never seen on the
screen, became celebrities in their own rights through their songs. It marked
a major innovation of Indian cinema and another step that would take it away
from the Hollywood tradition of making films. Bollywood had created a divide
between singing and acting which has never been bridged.

Two other men involved in Barua’s Devdas are worthy of note. The cameraman
was a young Bengali called Bimal Roy. Roy would became a legend of the Hindi
cinema, eventually leaving Calcutta for Bombay to became one of the leading
directors of Bollywood. Just over twenty years later, he would produce his own
version of a Hindi Devdas. This 1956 version contributed to the rising fame of
its two stars, Dilip Kumar and Vyjayanthimala.

The songs for Devdas which Saigal had sung were written by Kidar Sharma. A
decade later; now a film-maker, his film Neel Kamal introduced Raj Kapoor and
Madhubala to the screen, two of the greatest names of Bollywood.

Barua went on to make numerous films but Devdas was his defining film
and in Indian cinema he is always referred to as the man who made the first
Devdas.

Barua wrote most of the screen plays he directed. He left notebooks full of
carefuUy-pencilled notes, plots, and character sketches. Many seem to have been
projections of his own concerns and conflicts and he seemed deeply anguished
by the dilemmas of his native land, its almost unbelievable extremes of wealth and
poverty, of spirituality and cruelty. His plots often touched on these dilemmas but
in the end were constructed to evade any dramatic confiontation. '

An example was Adhikar, voted by the Film Journalists Association as the
best film of 1938. Besides writing and directing it, BarUa appeared as Nikhilesh.
The story tells of Radha;, a girl of the city slurrts; who longs for Wealth and
happiness. When she leariis that she is the illegitimate daughter of a rich rriaii,
whose only daughter, Indira, born of wedlotk, is living in utrtiost luxury, she
goes to Indira and claims half her father’s estate. Indira, shocked at WhaGshe
leafns; gives her shelter and money. Not content with this, Radha now'brings
about an estrangement between Indira and her fiance, Nikhilesh, and then
persuades het half-sister tO give her the whole of their father’s estate. Howevef,
her unscrupulous-ways turn evetyone against her and in the end'she leatns that
even her boyfriend, Ratan, no longer cares for her. ' . : - : . •

By making Radha, in the latter half of the story,-ah increasingly unsCrdpUlcmS
character, the dramatist manages' t6 move'the spotlight aWay' firorn the problerns
of social ■ ahd econorhic disparity'-vVith whklH he con-fronts'Us irl' the begihhihg;
In the ertd, he leaves matters weighted ori the side of Status ''I'''' I

in rne ena, ne leaves matters weigncea on me status qucr.

Yet for all his panache and the confident way he handled films and people,
Barua feared failure and, after he had finished a film, he seldom attended the
premiere. He would predict its utter failure and then be off to the forests of
Assam, Europe or America. In time, he would be back with notes for a new film,
only to find that the film whose premier he had not seen had been loved by the
critics and the public. Almost all his films were successful at the box office.

Admiration for him took extravagant, gushing tones. In an “open letter to
Prince Barua’’ pubhshed in a Calcutta paper, in 1939, a fan wrote:

We are inclined to include you in the category of the great thinkers of the present
day. By producing the immortal Devdas you opened a new way for the Indian film
industry and since then you are looked on as a great philosopher...

The tone of this letter was hardly unusual for that period. In the same year,
1939, an observer wrote about the influence of stars on clothing fashions:

Who can deny that Kanan’s novel way of hair-dressing in Mukti has been ‘the
method’ of dressing for modern girls?.. .that Barua’s curious cap in the same picture
has won Calcutta wide recognition as the most up-to-date’ headwear? that Lila
Desai’s dancing sari in Didi is in vogue as ‘Lila sari?’

In the film, Mukti (Liberation), Barua had played the role of a young romantic
artist, who allowed his wife, played by Kanan Devi, to marry again, then carries
out a perfectly simulated suicide and vanishes into the forests of Assam. The scenes
in Assam were shot on location and when the wife and her new husband go there
on a vacation, they meet Barua again. This time, Barua rescues her from a band of

ID I VJli r-tl

- , --

Barua, himself, had two wives—multiple marriages were stiU legal in India,
even for Hindus—they remain legal for Muslims to this day. The two wives lived
in adjoining villas in BaUygunge Circular Road, a posh area of Calcutta where
the richer Bengalis lived. Each of his wives bore him three children.

Barua was an unrelenting workaholic but was said to be considerate, never
ruffled and debonair. He planned his work minutely. Unlike most Indian
directors, he never told an actor how he wanted a scene played. He felt this
would convert an actor into a mimic, trying to copy what the director wants
when the actor should be an interpreter and arrive at his own concept of what
his role was.

Barua’s best work was done during his first decade With New Theatres. In the
1940S, he planned an ambitious Indian version of The Way of All Flesh, but this
never came off". His health declined rapidly and he underwent an operation in
Switzerland. He returned full of plans; but soon collapsed. He lived to see India
Sue but did httle work during the rest Of the 40s. When he died'in 1951, TTte

oiu nttie worK auring tne rest ot ttie'4OS. When he died'in 1951, The

Bollywood: A History

Journal of the Bengal Motion Picture Association recorded: “Pramatesh Chandra
Barua, creator of Devdas, died at 4 pm on Thursday, November 29 last, at his
Calcutta residence, after protracted illness. He was forty-eight.”

In the last few years of his life Barua fell out with Sircar but, before his death,
he requested that his funeral procession should stop at New Theatres before
going towards Kalighat, where he would be cremated. When the procession
reached New Theatres, Sircar, by then confined to his chair, because of illness
and gout, hobbled across the room to watch the procession and pay his last
homage to Barua. Clearly in death, Barua wanted to roll the years back to his
early triumphs, to the years of the rise and influence of New Theatres, when he
was the great star of the Indian cinema.

If Barua was the brightest star there were others, and the two most interesting
ones were the two Boses, Debaki and Nitin, not related. Debaki Bose, Ganguly’s
old colleague, favoured historical subjects drawn fix>m India’s mythological past and,
unhke Barua, worked slowly, shot far more than was needed and New Theatres was
always having to cope with the problems caused by a Debaki Bose film running
late. He was, however, too highly regarded a director for Sircar or anyone else to say
anything. So much so that he was the only one allowed to work for rival producers.
Indeed it was for the rival East India Film Company that he made Seeta, which is
rated as the best Indian mythological film and was screened at the i934Venice film
Festival. He eventually left New Theatres, just after the Second World War broke
out, to start on his own and was making films until the 1950s.

Not everyone was impressed with Debaki Bose. Durga Khote had come from
Kolhapur in western India to work in Calcutta and in her memoir, 1 , Durga
Khote, she was damning about Debaki Bose, “The sets were smaller, recording
was in natural voices, and the film’s pace generally very slow. The working hours
were also irregular. One felt a lot of time was being needlessly wasted. Our
director Debaki Kumar Bose was very caustic. He used the harshest words for
the smallest mistake — in English, of course.”

Debaki Bose also spoke m Bengali, and Khote went on a crash course of
Bengah to work out if he was criticising her in Bengali.

Nitin Bose’s love was the camera and he had come to New Theatres as a
cameraman. His infatuation with the camera went back to the time just before
the First World War when his father presented him with a Houghton Butcher
as a birthday present. Bose would later tell Govind Nihalani the effect that this
had on him;

“For several nights after everyone was asleep I would quietly bring up my camera
to my bedroom on the second floor. I would place it on the pillow by my head
and sleep with the hand on the camera and the feeling that it is my camera, and
the camera was me, as we were twins. That was my attitude right from the very
beginning; that was my attitude throughout hfe.”

Mavericks, Eccentrics, Bigamists

At New Theatres, he trained other young camera men such as Yusuf Mulji
and Bimal Roy. Nitin Bose directed his first film, Chandidas, for New Theatres in
1934, and after that made a number of movies. If Debaki liked mythologies, then
Nitin’s fondness was for love stories. But his romances were not of the gushing
kind, his characters were believable men and women not fantasies and in his
films he showed a sure grip in displaying everyday scenes which conveyed the
tensions and realism of ordinary life. Garga writes, “Characters in a Nitin Bose
film are no cardboard cut-outs; they are flesh and blood incarnations, revealed in
all their diversity. Nitin’s impeccable craftsmanship was achieved with a strong
romantic-humanist streak which set his films apart and earned him a special
place of his own.”

In 1941, Nitin Bose decided to move to Bombay, which he would later bitterly
regret, “the bluest blunder of my life,” The move indicated that Sircar’s studio
was in decline.

It did not die quite immediately. Three years later, in 1944, New Theatres
produced the first film of a man who was to become a major Bollywood director,
Bimal Roy. Belonging the Bodhis Hindu of Bengalis, his family came from
well-off Zamindari stock, as the landlord class in India is known. Educated in
Dacca; at a School which had Armenian influence, being called Armani Toli High
School, he grew up very socially aware of the plight of his fellow Indians.

His first movie, Udayer Pathe, whose Hindi version was called Hamrahi, was
the story of love between the daughter of a rich businessman who employed a
Marxist as a ghost writer fOr his speeches. Roy added to the tension between
the 'man, who hved to make money, and the idealistic Marxist, by shooting
scenes on actual locations rather than in the studio and had two songs by Tagore,
One of which became the national anthem for India when the country won its
fi'eedom.

The film proved a minor classic and its dialogues proved so popular that a
booklet containing them became one of India’s best-sellers.The writer, Nabendu
Ghosh, then living in Patna, having seen the film and loved it, now found
booklets of the dialogue had been printed and were being sold by street vendors
all over the town.

The film’s success provided some relief to New Theatres, but could not prevent
its ultimate demise.

Many who worked here have said it imploded due to internal tensions. Khote
says New Theatres’ fall was due to the kindness of Sircar who, while making
great films could not control his directors who formed cliques and ruined him
financially. Kanan Devi may have enjoyed the early family atmosphere but left
because she could get a rise. Then, there were tensions between Pankaj Mullick
and R.C. Boral, another composer, with Mullick feeUng Boral always tried to
steal the limelight. While Mullick remained faithful to Sircar, Boral joined Nitin
Bose Oh the train to Bombay.

Bollywood: A History

Mavericks, Eccentrics, Bigamists

But in many ways. New Theatres’ fall was inevitable, for it represented the last
great hurrah by Bengal’s film world to be the centre of Indian cinema.

We have seen how Madan, moving from Bombay to Calcutta at the beginning
of the twentieth century, had dominated early Indian cinema. By the time Nitin
Bose made the journey in the reverse direction, Calcutta had long ceased to be
the centre of the Indian world. It had assumed this unexpected position in 1757
following Robert Clive’s victory in Plassey, which established the British Empire
in India. The British made it the capital of their Indian empire, the first time a
coastal town in India had occupied such a lofty position. The seeds of its decay
were laid in the Raj decision in 1911 to move the capital of British India to
Delhi, although it was some years before this became evident. This was because
it took Edward Lutyens and Herbert Baker some time to build what is called
New Delhi, and it was another decade before the Raj abandoned Calcutta as
the capital. Once the capital had moved, Calcutta was doomed. True, Sircar had
established NewTheatres after the capital had moved and, with British businesses
houses in the city still strong and dominant, the decline was masked.

However, the city’s fall became very evident in the 1940s which was an awful
decade for Calcutta and Bengal. In 1942, the British defeat at the hands of the
Japanese and their conquest of Burma brought many refugees. In 1943, came the
Bengal famine when three million Bengalis died, the worst famine to hit south
Asia in the twentieth century, and the British administration callously abdicated
responsibility. Calcutta was so little regarded by the highest British officials that
the thenViceroy, Lord Linlithgow, did not visit the city during the famine. By the
late 40s, Hindu-Muslim tensions were so high that in 1946 there was the Great
Calcutta killings, with first Muslims targeting Hindus, then Hindus, retaliating.
In 1947. Bengal was partitioned. Calcutta, which little over twenty years earlier
had been the capital of all of India, and was considered the second city of the
Empire, was now the capital of a divided province, and crammed with some ten
million refugees, mainly Hindus from Muslim-majority east Pakistan. In 1911,
Lord Hardinge, then Viceroy, who took the decision to move the capital, saw
it as an indication that the British would always rule India. In less than twenty
years after the move, the British were gone from India and Calcutta was set in a
decline from which it has not yet recovered. New Theatres was a cry against the
dying of the Bengal light, a marvellous cry but, in the end, doomed to failure.

Not that the art of the cinema vanished from Calcutta. In the 1950s, it was to
produce many great directors, actor and actresses and, above all, Satyajit Ray, one of
the world’s greatest film directors. But the demise of New Theatres meant the citys
chances of rivalling Bombay as the centre of Indian cinema disappeared. After that
it remained an important regional centre but not the capital that Bombay became.
However, in the 1930s, while New Theatres flourished, Bombay was worried.

Bombay had watched New Theatres’ rise with great anxiety. The magazine
Filmindia, produced in Bombay, had warned, “It is not a provincial competition.

It is New Theatres against the entire lot of producers, whether from Bombay
Calcutta or the Punjab. It is sheer quahty against such quantity.” During that
decade, Bombay financiers had repeatedly offered Barua substantial sums of
money to produce such films in Bombay. Pahari Sanyal, a star actor at New
Theatres, was often an intermediary in such oflTers. Barua waved them aside
stating “It is not my field. It is a bazaar.”

Bombay’s answer came firom some very enterprising men, although these men
worked not in Bombay but in small towns some distance from Bombay, first
in Kolhapur and then in Poona, now known as Pune. In their own ways, they
were to exert almost as great an influence on Indian cinema as NewTheatres.
I aiiTM-tn«H in 1929 in Kolhapur, Prabhat Film Company moved to Poona in 1933,
bodi. cities very firmly in the Marathi-speaking area of the state, Bombay then
being a state diat combined both present day Maharashtra and Gujerat. If New
Theatres was remarkable for the educational level of its leaders, the Kolhapur
group was remarkable in exactly the opposite way. Rich in talented directors, it
had few with formal education.

One of it leaders, Rajaram Vanakudre Shantaram—known professionally as V.
S ha ht ara m—was born in Kolhapur in 1901. In his early teens he got a job in a
riittrirttd repair and maintenance workshop, where his working day was Sam to
dpm and his salary RS15 per month. At sixteen he acquired an additional job.
Each day he went fixim the railroad shop to a local tin-shed cinema. Here, at a
startup wage of Rs5 per month, he did odd jobs, eventually graduating to be a
door-boy and then becoming a sign-painter.

ffis education came fiom this cinema house where he watched films as often
ai'he could. Shantaram became saturated in the lore of the film world and closely
(tudied film personalities. As a boy he was admired as a mimic of Western screen
fiwtnmtes; the French Zigomar, Max Linder, Protea and the Italian Foolshead.
tfe Foolshead portrayal—^his speciality—included not only the comedian’s
nohnerisms but the quivering primitive screen image. This fascination with the
^Rstem world was, however, overshadowed by something else. Among the great
oittls of his childhood was the periodic arrival of a Phalke film. In the manner
tHditional to travelling shows, it would be promoted by a parade through the
with proclamations heralded by the beating of drums. It was not by
accident that Shantaram’s first sound film, years later, was Ayodecha Raja —the
of King Harischandra, the tale that had launched Phalke.
dieatre job that the boy Shantaram got meant he was now in the midst
*^****‘^*“^ world and this soon led to a job as assistant to a photographer.
■, in 1921, he was hired by a new film company just starting in Kolhapur,
Maharashtra Film Company, having been introduced to its owner by a
• At the moment of introduction, the owner was painting. He looked
itmindedly said, “Huh,” which was taken as ‘Yes’, and Shantaram was

100

Bollywood: A History

Spurred by Phalke’s success, Maharastra Film was producing mythologicals
and historicals based on regional history. The proprietor, who had so casually
said yes, was called Baburao Painter. This was not his real name. His real name
was Baburao Krishnarao Mestri, who had been born in Kolhapur in 1890. The
Painter name was given to him because of his skilful hands which produced
marvellous paintings, sculpture.s and woodworks, having taught himself to paint
and sculpt in academic art school style. Between 1910 and 1916, he and his
artist cousin, Anandrao Painter, were the leading painters of stage backdrops in
western India, doing several famous curtains for Sangeet Natak troupes and also
for Gujarati Parsi theatres.

Painter had set up the Maharashtra Film Company with support from the
local nobility and, apart from V. Shantaram, and the group that later left to set
up The Prabhat Film Company, he also introduced two female artists, Gulab Bai
and Anusuya Bai, renamed as Kamala Devi and Sushila Devi, respectively. Since
acting was looked down upon, the two ladies were excommunicated by their
community and had to find refuge in the studio premises. As well as acting in
films, they would often cook and serve food to the entire unit.

Like Shantaram, Painter had had little education but, like many others, he had
been inspired by Phalke’s Raja Harishchandta and, starting with a camera he had
picked up in Bombay’s Chor Bazaar (literally Thieves’ Market but. in reality, a flea
market), he became an innovator of the silent era.

A man who wrote his own screenplays, he changed the concept of set¬
designing from painted curtains to solid, multi-dimensional, lived-in spaces and
understood the importance of publicity. As early as 1921-22, he was the first to
issue programme booklets, complete with details of the film and photographs.
He also himself painted tasteful, eye-catching posters of his films.

But another innovation, artificial lighting, proved so successful in the film
Singhagad that it turned out to he double-edged. Its box office success made the
Bombay Revenue Department decide the Government should have some of this
money and the Entertainment Tax was introduced

If the tax men were drawn to films through Baburao, then his first film, the
1920 Sairandhri, did not please the censor board for its graphic depiction of the
slaying of Keechak by Bhima.The scene had to be deleted but the film won both
critical and commercial acclaim.

Baburao also made the first realistic Indian film, the 1925 Savakari Pash, dealing
with money-lending, a problem that blighted the lives of countless illiterate, poor
farmers. However, for audiences that loved mythological fantasy and historical
love, this was too strong a dose of realism and the film did not do well, forcing
Baburao to return to costume dramas.

Painter gave Shantaram every conceivable job in film production: cleaner,
errand boy, scene painter, laboratory assistant, special effects man, camera assistant,
and performer.

Mavericks, Eccentrics, Bigamists

101

In 1929, Shantaram, at the age of 28, along with four partners, decided
to launch the Prabhat Film Company, His partners were Vishnupat Damle,
Keshavroa Dhaiber, S. Fatehlal and Sitaram Kulkarni, with Kulkarni the financier
of the group. They began in a canvas studio, acquiring a tin-built studio only
years later, after the move to Poona. For actors, they relied heavily on local
performers and soon had a roster of a hundred local people. The spirit of
community participation was clearly infectious. As Fatehlal recalled in Indian
Tii/Jfeie, “They accepted a rupee or two if we offered. When we needed elephants,
horses or soldiers, the Maharaja of Kolhapur lent us as many as we needed. He
even arranged mock battles and supervised the shooting.”

The emphasis, however, gradually shifted towards professionalism and the
group transformed itself into a large, self-sufficient organisation of several
hundred artists, technicians and assistants. After a few silent films, the young
GCMnpany began, in 1932, to release a stream of sound films in the Marathi
language, some of which were also made m Hindi. Some Tamil films were also
made. It was many years before Shantaram’s studios made films only in Hindi.

The three releases of 1932, including Shantaram’s Ayodecha Raja, were produced
in Hindi and Marathi. The role of Taramati, played in the Phalke film by the
male actor Salunke, was now played by a high-caste girl of Kolhapur, Durga
Khote.who was hailed as “the most spectacular new-comer of the year,” and was
60 become, one of India’s most celebrated actresses.

Shantaram had to work hard to get Khote. Her father was a solicitor who
hked the theatre but was appalled by the idea of his daughter becoming a
screen actress, sharing many of the prejudices of the higher Indian classes for
this medium. When Shantaram came to Bombay to scout for actresses Durga,
who was by then a married woman with two children, had to plead with her
f^ber to let her act. He insisted on vetting everything and Durga had to fetch
Siantaram to come and see her “Papa.” In the taxi that took them to her
Other’s house, Durga was so nervous she incessantly spoke in English, making
Shantaram wonder if she could speak Hindi or Marathi, the languages of his
fflms. Shantaram persuaded Papa Laud (Khote’s maiden name) to let his daughter
travel to Kolhapur but Papa sent a retainer along with his daughter. Though
studio facilities in Kolhapur were primitive, the company worked with precision
and a sense of organisation. Khote was supplied with complete ready-to-shoot
scripts, well in advance, and told what songs and what dialogue to deliver. In her
niemoir, I, Durga Khote, she recalls;

Shantarambabu was a strict teacher. Nothing was allowed to pass on the basis of‘It
do . Fie took immense pain, observed my walk, speech, gestures, posture, the way I
j “MJved before the camera, and every other detail, with a minute eye to get exacdy what
*>^he Wanted out ofme.Though I loved music, I was not a trained musician. So my singing
nothing to write home about. But he [Govindrao Tembe, who looked after the

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Bollywood; A History

music] somehow managed to make my songs more or less acceptable; but that was about
all. The fact that they became popular was undoubtedly on account of their melodious
tunes, their beautiful pictunsation and their perfect placement in the scene. I was busy
almost twelve hours a day in Kolhapur, working on something or other connected with
the film.There was no electricity in Kolhapur in those days. We had to be in the studio
at the crack of dawn because all the shooUng had to be done in natural light. Make-up,
costume, hairstyles, all had to be completed by half-past seven, when the shooting began.

It went on till about five o’clock when the last rays of the sun were fading. The next
morning the day’s routine would start again from five o’clock onwards.

Shantaram’s first sound film, Gopal Krishna, won him wide recognition. From
the start he struggled against the staginess of early sound film and tried to make
much of the mobility that the use of camera gave him. In 1936, his impressive
spectacle, Amar Jyoti, made in Hindi, was shown at the Venice Film Festival. But
it wasn’t Shantaram alone who made Prabhat, as was demonstrated when a year
later, in 1937, Sant Tukaram, made by Fathelal and Damle in Marathi, became the
first Indian film to win a Venice Film festival award.

To Prabhat, as with New Theatres and other studios, well-known mythological
and devotional stories seemed the safest starting point in the sound era. For
decades an Indian producer, when asked why a film was popular, seemed likely
to say that it was because the people knew the story. Famiharity, not novelty, was
long considered the safest investment. For example, the first five years of sound
brought three different versions of the Tukaram story, all in Marathi, and eight
versions of the Harischanadra story, in five Indian languages.

Shantaram and his fellow directors of Prabhat, were keen to experiment with
social films and the most notable of these came from Shantaram. In 1937, he
produced Duniya Na Maane, first in Hindi and later in Marathi, under the title
Kunku. In the film we learn of a bright young girl, Nirmala, who is married
to an elderly man through negotiations conducted by her uncle. In a series
of deftly-treated episodes, the old husband becomes aware of the wrong done
to her. Finally, in his eagerness to restore to Nirmala the freedom taken from
her—divorce was not possible in those days—he kdls himself.

Bapu Watve in Ek Hoti Prabhatnagir has described how the suicide scene was
filmed:

The suicide of the heroine’s aged husband was filmed with sensitivity. An antique
clock symbolises his advanced age. He removes the long pendulum of the clock,
signifying taking his life himself, and uses it as a paper-weight for the suicide note
he leaves for his wife and daughter.

In 1939, Shantaram’s Admi again carried an imphed challenge to traditional
Hindu society. It told of Moti, a police constable, who is assigned to raid a

X xxxxvAU iir xoici ajx xvivfVpI, ct WllV^ lU TiilU ii

Mavericks, Eccentrics, Bigamists

103

gambling den and brothel. Here he meets Kcsar, a prostitute, and finds her eager
to escape the vicious atmosphere of her life. He lends her a helping hand and
eventually comes to love her but the religious atmosphere of Mod’s house drives
the girl away,

Shantaram did not make too many more movies with Prabhat. In 1941, he
made Padosi (Neighbour), which tried to deal with the growing Hindu-Muslim
tension by showing that what divides people is not religion, but money.The film
also had a Marathi version called Shejari. The lead actress was a woman called
Jayshree and she now came between Shantaram and his partners.

In many ways the break-up of Prabhat would have made an ideal Shantaram
script.When the partnership was formed, the partners had a strict code that they
should not get involved with actresses who worked for them. If they did, they
had to leave.This was what forced Keshavrao Dhaibef to leave when he married
Prabhat actress, Nalini Tarkhad, Baburao Pai coming in as the fifth partner.

Shantaram, although married toVimal, who was mother to his three children,
had fallen in love with Jayshree and wanted to marry her. The romance between
Shantaram, by now in his 40s, and Jayashree, a good deal younger, had started
off in the classic tale of the older man and the younger woman, in this case the
older man summoning the younger, high-spirited, woman to his office for a
ticking off. Jayshree liked to play pranks and since Shantaram was keen on tight
disciphne in his studios, she was called to his room for a chat. His biographer
says “no one knows what transpired,” but clearly a bond was established which
developed into love.

The effect was very noticeable. Shantaram had so far dressed more like an
Indian. Although he wore trousers when shooting, he wore the Indian dhoti-
kurta when not working. And his work clothes were simple: always white, a
short-sleeved shirt, a pair of trousers. Jayshree made him dress the way a well-off
Western male of the 30s would have dressed: bow tie, sports jackets, expensive
trousers, and boots. A photograph of him with Jayshree shows him looking
like quite a Westernised Indian dandy, while Jayshree, in sari, gazes at him
admiringly.

But his partners were not looking on admiringly. They did not approve of his
dalhance with Jayshree and Shantaram refused to follow the law he had himself
laid down that any such affair meant the partner had to leave. By this time his
relationship with Damle had broken down. The two men were not even on
speaking terms and the soft-spoken Fatehlal had to try and keep the peace. Even
then, when Damle and Fatehlal had their mahurat for Sant Sakhu, they did not
invite Shantaram, an insult that could not be more pointed.

Shantaram could not stay away from Jayshree and they got married without,
of course, divorcing Vimal, a situation she reluctantly accepted. The partners
had, in the meantime, forced Jayshree to resign but this could not heal the
rift. Shantaram had to go. The parting could have been more acrimonious, as

lantaram had to go. The parting could have been more acrimonious, as

104

Bollywood; A History

Mavericks, Eccentrics. Bigamists

105

Frabhat was then worth Rs 6o lakhs but, Shantarani, according to his biographer,
Jayshree’s son Kiran, “agreed to give up the partnership for a mere Rs 2.5 lakhs
(Rs250,ooo), knowing fully well that if he demanded his rightful one-fifth share,
the company would close down immediately.”

Shantaram moved to Bombay, and although he hated Barua, and the movies
he made, the two mens life styles now converged. Like him, he had two
wives who lived near each other. Jayshree, producing more children for him,
including Kiran, lived oppositeVimal and her familyjayshree and her children in
Cambridge Terrace at Pedder Road, Vimal and her brood at Shahbaug, across the
street.The two families often met during Hindu festivals and other occasions. In
time, Shantaram even bettered Barua and left Jayshree for a third wife.

Initially, in Bombay, he worked as Chief of the Film Advisory board set up by
the Raj to make war propaganda films, a job he had been offered byJ.B.H.Wadia,
a man who will figure later in our story. Shantaram was not too keen to work
for the British but this solved the problem of what he would do when he moved
to Bombay. However, in 1942, when Gandhi gave his call to the British to quit
India, he resigned and formed his own studios, Rajkamal Kalmandir, Rajkamal
being an amalgam of his father’s name Rajaram and his mother’s Kamala, with
money for the studio coming from a Delhi financier called Gupta.

Shantaram, like most Indians of that period, wanted to see India free; pictures
of him show him wearing the Gandhi cap and, inevitably, he had to cope with
the British censors being sensitive to anything that they thought promoted the
idea of India’s freedom. One of his early films for Frabhat in 1930 was Shivaji,
about the sixteenth century Maratha leader who challenged the Mughals
and established the Maratha Empire. A great hero in Maharashtra, Shantaram
originally called the film Swarajya Torna (Flag of Freedom). The British saw this
Shivaji V. Mughal fight as a thinly-disguised reference to Gandhi’s campaign
against the Raj, then gathering renewed force. Gandhi had just made his historic
march to the sea to demonstrate the inequities of British rule that led, in the
summer of 1930, to the launch of his second major civil disobedience campaign.
The censor had the film renamed Shivaji and demanded that “its patriotic
fervour be diluted.” In 1935, inspired by Gandhi’s call for Hindus to reform their
wretched caste laws, in particular the way higher castes treated untouchables,
Shantaram produced a film he originally called Mahatma. But this was the name
Indians called Gandhi and the censors objected, saying it had “association with
a certain political leader.” It also did not like the film’s “controversial politics. ’
Shantaram was not happy to make the cuts but the distributors agreed and the
title was changed to Dharmatma.

Like Barua, Shantaram was a pioneer of the Indian cinema, and can be
credited with innovations such as the first film-maker to use a trolley shot, and
the first to use a telephoto lens for close-ups. But, unlike Barua, whose Devdas
appalled Shantaram—he felt it was too pessimistic and affected audiences

badly—Shantaram was more interested in the evolving political world round
him. During a 1933 visit to Germany, where he had gone to use the Agfa
laboratories to help develop his colour film Sairandhir, he was impressed by the
order and discipline that Hitler, who had just come to power, had brought, a not
uncommon view of the early years of Nazi rule. But even more than that he
was taken by the then giants of the German cinema: Fabst, Lang, Lubitsch and
Max Ophuls.

Interestingly, the German influence also weighed heavily with two other
Indians who were responsible for creating the greatest Indian film studio which,
even more than New Theatres and Frabhat, was to mould and influence Indian
cinema long after it had ceased to make movies. This was Bombay Talkies and,
in a story all too Indian, the road to Bombay Talkies was through Berlin and
London.

The Road id Bombay via Munich and London

107

The Road to Bombay via Munich

and London

Late in 1933, two young people arrived in Bombay from London, bringing with
them a completed film which had been finished in London and already shown
there. Along with its English version, they brought a Hindi version, which
was yet to be seen by the public. The two young people were Indians, though
both had been absent from India for much of their lives. In their plans, much
depended on the reception they would get in Bombay for their Hindi film. For
both, long journeys via Germany and England had led to this moment.

Devika Rani Chaudhury—better known as Devika Rani—was born in
Waltair in southern India. Her father. Colonel Chaudhury, soon afterward became
Surgeon-General of Madras. A great-uncle on her mother’s side was Rabindranath
Tagore. When she was nine, her father shipped her to England to be educated,
telhng her she must learn to take care of herself The Colonel was like many an
upper-class Indian who beheved that an English upbringing front an early age was
the best education there was; the English rulers of India sent their children to be
educated back in England and Indians of this class were very keen to imitate that.
Devika’s early years were spent in north London’s South Hampstead School.

When she finished school, she won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of
Dramatic Art. She also earned surprisingly large sums of money making Paisley
designs for a British textile company, and wrote to her father that he need not
send her any more money since she could take care of herself. But she was
not quite sure what career she should foUow. London seemed to offer so many
opportunities. Already showing rare beauty, she had, by this time, been befriended
by an international crowd, which included Anna Pavlova, and discussed her career
problem earnestly with them. Should she be a dancer, as Anna Pavlova urged?
A singer? A doctor, like her father? Or, even, perhaps an architect? Interested in
architecture, she enrolled on a course. Then she met Rai, an Indian film producer,
and asked him the same question she had been asking ber other friends.

Three fields, he said, would grow in importance, and in any of them she would
be able to serve India: the press, radio, and film. He then offered her a job as

consultant on costumes and sets for his next film, to be shot in India. This was
the start of a friendship that soon blossomed into love and the following year,
after the shooting was finished, they were married in southern India. Devika was
still in her teens.

Rai was at this time in a crisis in his own career. Born in Bengal, where he
was part of a large family that had its own private theatre, he had studied at the
University of Calcutta, acquired a law degree, and also studied under Tagore at
Santiniketan. During his time there, Gandhi visited the school.The young man was
inclined to the arts, but the family’s plans now called for him to go to London for
training as a lawyer at the Inner Temple—as Gandhi had done. Rai gladly went.

In London, while he did his law studies, he could not keep away from the
theatre, and got a small part in the fabulously successful musical, Chu Chin
Chow, when he was asked to carry a spear. Then he played a role in a London
production of The Goddess, a play by a young Indian writer, Niranjan Pal.
Meanwhile, he was formulating other, grander, plans.

He wanted to make a series of films on the great world religions. One would
deal with the Buddha; another would be based on the Oberammergau Passion
Play. Soon Rai journeyed to Munich, to promote his plans.

He was a skilful pleader and, early in 1924, persuaded the Emelka Film
Company of Munich, to take part in an ambitious project: an international
co-production, the first such co-production in Indian films, Rai wanted to tell
the story of Buddha, basing it on ITie Light of Asia, the poem by Edwin Arnold.
Emelka would send to India a director, cameraman and assistants, and would
provide all the equipment. Its laboratory in Munich would process the film,
and would do all the editing. Rai for his part would provide an Indian cast and
raise funds in India to pay them, and other location costs. Emelka would own all
European distribution rights.The Indian investors would own Indian distribution
rights and would receive from Emelka two prints to exploit these rights.

Rai’s visit to India worked according to plan and he raised an unusually large
sum eventually about Rs90,ooo—for the production outlay. Work quickly
began, with Buddha played by Rai and the feminine lead by a thirteen-year-old
Anglo-Indian girl, Sita Devi, whose real name was Renee Smith.The screen play
was the work of Niranjan Pal; Frank Osten, a German, directed the film, while
Rai produced. The film had gala openings in Berlin, Vienna, Budapest, Venice,
Genoa, Brussels, with personal appearances by Rai and toasts to this unique
production by various international notables. The film was a success throughout
Central Europe, providing a great financial triumph for Emelka. In London, it
had a Royal Command Performance and ran for over four months at a concert
hall, though not profitably.

In India, the film received favourable criticism but only limited success at the
box office. The trade persisted in considering it “foreign,” The backers, moving
their two prints fi-om city to city, experienced mounting disillusionment. After

108

Bollywood: A History

two years, Rs50,ooo remained un-recovered. What Rai had hoped would launch
a series of international productions did exactly the opposite and closed the door
to Indian capital.

But what had closed doors in India opened them wider in Germany. The
continental success of The Light of Asia, (a print of which has been preserved by the
National Film Archive of the British FOm Institute, London) brought Rai offers that
resulted in two more Indo-German productions, both shot in India, both performed
by Indian casts including Rai and Sita Devi, both written by Niranjan Pal, directed
by Franz Osten, and produced by Rai—this time with German capital.

The first was Shiraz, made in 1926 under the Emelka banner, and telling a
story of the designer of the Taj Mahal. The second was A Throw of Dice, produced
under the banner of Universum Film AktiengeseUschaft, Ufa—the giant
Government-subsidised organisation with studios at Neubabelsberg. It was this
film that involved Devika Rani.

When the shooting was completed for A Throw of Dice, Rai and his bride
hastened to Neubabelsberg, Germany, for the editing. The world of Ufa was
thrown open to them. As the editing progressed, Devika Rani became a trainee
in the Erich Pommer unit. She got advice from Fritz Lang, watched the shooting
of The Blue Angel, held the make-up tray for Marlene Dietrich, and engaged
in intensive seminars with the great director G.W Pabst. Pabst, in one exercise,
would place a trainee before the camera and, while the action was shot, ask a
series of questions to be answered with “yes” or“no.”Then, Pabst would review
the film in minute detail. “Never use that one,” he would say. “See what an ugly
thing it does to your mouth there? Remember that, ehminate it.”

The Ufa training created exciting vistas. But it could not last. Sound was
coming and along with that other changes in the wider economic and political
life of Germany. Suddenly, one day, Ufa issued a barrage of dismissal notices. The
arrival of sound had forced a complete Ufa reorganisation. Indian co-production
no longer seemed feasible and the German career of Rai was ended. Not long
afterwards, Ufa came under Nazi control. Lang and others were ousted in the
interest of racial purity. Pommer and Pabst went into exile. Meanwhile, Emelka
of Munich, which had given Ufa some competition, became a victim of the
spreading financial depression.

But if the doors m Germany were closing for Himansu, doors in England
were still open to him where both Shiraz and A Throw of Dice won sufficiently
favourable reception for British capital to show increasing confidence in Rai.
There were critics of the films in England, some found the films “singularly
uninteresting.,” but many others were enchanted. A British distributor had
already guaranteed the German backers £7,500 for British rights in Shiraz,
another had also given Ufa an advance guarantee on A Throw of Dice. Rai found
that British capital was ready to take the full risk on his next venture. Rai made
the most of this and launched an international production.

The Road to Bombay via Munich and London

109

This Anglo-Indian co-production with both English capital and technical
assistance (an Englishman, J.L. Freer Hunt, directed the film), was the beginning
o( Karma (Fate), in which Devika Rani co-starred with Rai.

The film marked Devika’s rise as the lead actress. Karma having marked the
end of Sita Devi’s association with Rai, who did not appear in the film. Her
success in three Rai films had won her a starring position with the Madans. Not
having mastered Hindi, she slipped from the public eye after sound arrived.

In 1930, the Rais were back in India for many months of exterior shooting
and intensive study of Hindi; then they returned to London’s Stoll Studio’s for
the interior shooting, including the recordings of the songs. For every shot, two
takes were made: one in English, one in Hindi. Because of a limited budget, two
takes for a shot was usually the limit, except for the songs.

. The film took over two years to complete. It was a modern story about a
beautiful young maharani (Devika Rani) who wanted “progress”—it was never
quite explained what this meant—and her love for a prince of a neighbouring
Indian state (Rai), who also wanted “progress,” but whose father, the maharaja,
did not. Marriage brought her, by the rules of Hindu society, under her father-
in-law’s authority, and this created the conflict of the film. It was premiered in
London in May, 1933.

: Critics had some reservations about the story, which a few considered naive,
but Devika won all of them over. The critics gushed over her beauty. “A glorious
creature,” the Eva called her, “Devika Rani’s large velvety eyes can express every
emotion.”

On May ii, 1933, The News Chronicle declared that “she totally eclipses the
ordinary film star. All her gestures speak, and she is grace personified.” Four days
later,'on May 15, 1933, Die Star reported that “her English is perfection.” Fox
Film Corporation now wanted Devika Rani to star in a film about Bali, and a
German producer wanted her for a film about a snake-charmer. But Rai had no
desire to became an Indian exile in Europe and told Devika, “Let us learn from
these people, but let us put the knowledge to work in our own country.”

- The couple knew that their film future was in India. With the advent of sound.

this was more certain than ever. Rai now staked everything in the Hindi version
of Karma which had its Bombay premier on January 27, 1934. Its reception
once more opened doors for Rai and made Indian investors look on him with
sympathy and some of them even brought out their cheque books.

That year, Bombay Talkies Ltd., was formed as a joint stock company with an
authorised capital of Rs 25 lakhs, around £192,000, a colossal sum of money for
India in those days. Rai showed foresight in his choice of the place for the studio.
Until then film activity in Bombay had been in south Bombay but he chose
Malad, then a remote suburb of Bombay, indeed, almost part of the wilderness
that surrounded Bombay. It seemed to suggest he knew the direction in which
the city would develop and where its future film facilities would be built and

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Bollywood; A History

over the next few decades he was to be proved right. He located the studio at the
summer mansion of F.E. Dinshaw, a rich Parsi, and got some of Bombay’s most
prominent businessmen, all of them knighted by the King-Emperor, to serve on
his board. They were: Sir Chimanlal Setalvad, Sir Chynilal Mehta, Sir Richard
Temple, Sir Pheroze Sethna, Sir Sohrabji Pockhanawala and Sir Cowaji Jehangir,
three Parsi knights, two Gujarati knights reflecting the then economic and social
power of both communities with Temple, the solitary Brit, being the son of a
former Governor of Bombay.

It could not have been more establishment and it said much for Rai’s powers
of persuasion that he got such a group together, in particular Sethna, who was
then the dominant figure in Bombay business and national politics. A director
of Tatas, the giant industrial house of India, he was also chairman of the Sun
Insurance company and had been the first choice of the British to head the
inquiry into the cinema; just before he joined Rai’s board, he had become
the first head of the newly set up Motion Picture Society of India. Rarely in
the history of Bollywood has such a glittering board of directors graced a film
company; it was a first and remains an exception; Rai had come to Bombay at
just the right time. Bombay was stiU a sleepy, colonial town, as it would remain
for some time to come. However, the 1930s was a time of expansion for Bombay,
a city made up of seven islands joined together by nature, was now seeing vast
efforts to reclaim land. This was when Marine Drive, the promenade in south
Bombay that defines the city, was built, as was also Brabourne Stadium, its
historic cricket ground. Bombay was not yet the commercial capital of India—
that distinction stiU belonged to Calcutta—but it was getting ready to take over
from its historic rival.

Rai built the studio with painstaking care, supervising the purchase of the
most modern equipment. In 1935, a stream of Hindi productions began to
emerge from Bombay Talkies Ltd. Rai realised he needed foreign technical help
and turned to Germany and Britain. Franz Osten, director of The Light of Asia,
Shiraz, and A Throw of Dice, joined him, the cameraman was also a German, Carl
Josef Wirsching, as was Carl von Spreti, the set designer, while Len Hartley, the
sound recordist was British, with Zolle, the laboratory technician. Rai felt this
leavening of foreign help was necessary in order to teach and guide his other staff
of whom there were more than four hundred—artists, technicians, assistants, and
others—and all of them were Indian. It became, like New Theatres and Prabhat,
a largely self-sufficient organisation.

Rai’s desperate efforts for international co-production had been ahead of its
time. For years to come, with the difficulties of sound, film producers in most
countries would concentrate on home problems. Bombay Talkies Ltd would
do likewise. But co-production would, in later decades, once more emerge as a
challenging and necessary idea, and in India the pioneering work of Rai would
remain a reference point for aU such ventures.

The Read to Bombay via Munich and London

111

Mindful of the exhilarating days with the Pommer unit, Rai and Devika Rani
soon instituted a trainee programme. Each year Rai interviewed scores of job
candidates, many sent by Indian universities. Within a few years the names of a
number of younger Bombay Talkies staff members were to become the legends
of Bollywood.

The first, and in many ways the greatest of them, was Ashok Kumar. The way
he was discovered and made into a star illustrated how Rai worked and how film
stars emerged in India. There could not have been a more reluctant film star, a
man who was given his first chance despite the fact that the director thought
he could not act and he himself had studied to be a lawyer and wanted to be a
film director.

Ashok Kumar Ganguly was a Bengal Brahmin who claimed his family were
not really Brahmins. The story went that his great-grandfather was the dacoit
Raghunath who, seeking shelter from the Raj’s police, took refuge in a temple
and posed as a Brahmin there. The police, taking him to be the temple priest,
left him alone and Rogho, as he was known, celebrated his escape, by giving
thanks to the gods, deciding to give up dacoity and become a Brahmin priest.
This made Ashok Kumar an Amathe Brahim, who Ashok always claimed were
not real Brahmins at all. Ashok Kumar was also not a Bengali from Bengal but,
what Bengalis called Probashi Bengali, an “overseas” Bengali.

He was born in Bhagalpur in Bihar, where his father was a lawyer. Ashok set
out to become a lawyer, but in Calcutta, where he was sent to study, he started
showing an interest in films and set his heart on becoming a film director. Keen
to study film direction at Ufa, and having heard about Rai’s connections with
Ufa, he decided to seek the help of his brother-in-law, Sasadhar Mukeijee, who
was already working for Bombay Talkies. Ashok asked him if he could get him an
introduction to Rai, which he thought might help him get to Ufa. Ashok Kumar
dared not tell his parents that he was going anywhere near films, as well-brought
up, middle-class boys and girls were warned to keep away from this dangerous
medium. He secretly used the money given for his examination fee for the law
college all of RS35—to buy a ticket to see Sasadhar in Bombay, arriving in the
city on the morning of January 28, 1934.

But the first meeting with Bombay Talkies went badly. When Himansu asked
Franz Osten to give Ashok Kumar a test, the German was distinctly unimpressed
with the latest recruit of the producer. Their conversation went as follows:

“Mr Ganguly do you act on stage?”

No. Sir”(he had, but as child in amateur theatricals)

“Do you sing?”

Yes. Mr Osten. 1 can sing.”

Ashok then sang a classical Bhajan, a devotional Hindu song.

Osten said nothing and asked him to take a screen test.

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113

At the end of it, he told Rai,“No, Mr Rai, no good” and turning to Ashok Kumar

said,“You have a square jaw, you look too young and girlish”

Osten advised him to return to Calcutta and his law studies. Rai, however,
had other ideas. He was keen to hire educated people. Both he and Devika had
made this their aim when they started Bombay Talkies. Sasadhar, himself, was a
good example of this. The scion of a rich Bengali family from AUahabad, he had
an MSc. in Physics, having studied under the great Indian scientist. Dr Meghnad
Saha, who believed Sasadhar had a brilliant future as a physicist. Rai reassured
Ashok that, as he wanted to be a film director, this setback did not matter, and
hired him as trainee technician. His first job was to be a camera assistant. He
was to be paid RSI50 a month, a just about liveable salary. His father, who had
dreamt of his son becoming the Chief Justice of India, was distraught, while his
mother worried if she could ever marry him off to the daughter of a respectable
family. Eight months later, Ashok Kumar’s life was changed through a disastrous
love affair involving Devika Rani, with the result that Hindi screen’s first matinee
idol, the man w^ho was always called “the Evergreen hero,” was born.

Himansu Rai was shooting Jeevan Naiya, the boat of life, when Devika, as
usual playing the leading lady, decided to change boats and run away with the
leading man, Najmul Hussein, to Calcutta. Himansu got his wife back through
the efforts of Sasadhar who, according to the Urdu writer Saadat Hasan Man to,
took pity on Himansu and on own his initiative persuaded Devika to return.
Najmul stayed on in Calcutta to become part of NewTheatres and now vanishes
from our story. But this stiU left Himansu with the problem of getting a leading
man. Then he recalled the young man who wanted to be a director, who Osten
thought would never make an actor but whose good looks had impressed
Himansu.

One day he went to the lab where Ashok was working and asked a startled
Ashok to walk, while Himansu watched. After watching for a few minutes he
told him he would be the hero of Jeevan Naiya.

Ashok was terrified by the idea of acting. He had just heard that his parents
that were about to choose a bride for him and told Himansu he could not act,
as this would jeopardise his marriage prospects. “Sir, those who act belong to
the lower strata of life.” Himansu was not best pleased. “You know my wife acts.
Does that mean she belongs to that class?” Right till the first day of shooting, he
kept raising objections. Before the first day’s shooting he had his hair cut very
short, which meant a wig was required. Then, just before the shooting began,
he pleaded with Himansu, “Please sir, don’t ask me to embrace any heroine or
girl. I won’t be able to do that.” Many years earlier on the Calcutta stage he had
seen such an embrace and it had filled him with embarrassment, the memory of
which StiU haunted him. Then just as the shooting began, he noticed Sasadhar
adjusting the microphone as part of his job as sound engineer. He told Himansu

he could not possibly act in front of his own brother-in-law. Himansu assured
him Sasadhar would be in a booth and not visible on the set.

The first day’s shooting was a disaster. The film, a love story, involved Ashok
having to put a gold necklace round Devika’s neck. But he was terrified of
touching her and made such a ham-fisted job of it that the necklace got tangled
in her hair and it broke. Devika tried to reassure him in Bengali but this made
him aU the more nervous and made him want to run to the toilet.

In another scene, he was required to jump through a window to stop the
viUain molesting Devika. Osten had told him to count to ten before he jumped.
Ashok forgot, jumped too early, and landed on top of Devika and the actor
playing the villain, who broke his leg in the faU.

Osten despaired of the man, who he was sure would never be an actor. But
Himansu brushed aside the accident saying to Ashok, “So you broke the villain’s
leg” and remained convinced he could act. On that terrible first day’s shooting
he also gave Ashok Kumar his screen name although he was unwittingly inspired
by Osten. During the first day’s shooting Osten, never quite able to cope with
Indian names, caUed Ashok “Mr Kumar.” As he did so, Himansu said, “You have
helped me give a new name to the new hero Ashok Kumar Ganguly. Tear apart
Ganguly from his full name. Make him a casteless hero loved by all castes and
classes. He shall simply be Ashok Kumar.” This was a shrewd choice. Kumar is a
common middle name in India (it means young prince in Hindi) and soon new
actors coming to Hindi cinema also dropped their surnames and used Kumar as
their surname, seeking to bridge the many divisions in Indian society.

Jeevan Naiya was a success although Ashok Kumar was so embarrassed by his
acting he did not want to attend the premiere. Himansu gifted him a suit and
persuaded him to attend; at the end, he found himself being summoned by
the Maharaja of Gwalior, who was in the audience and had been impressed by
the film. This started a friendship between the actor and one of Indian’s most
important royal families. The audience’s reaction reassured Ashok Kumar but
it was still not certain he would remain in acting. His father, determined to
rescue him from films, had got him a job as a tax inspector which paid more
than Bombay Talkies then paid him. Ashok Kumar would have had good reason
to leave films then. Osten had been dismissive, film critics had called him a
chocolate hero” and as Saadat Hasan Manto, who got know him well, wrote in
his memoir, “I had seen some of Ashok’s films but as far as acting was concerned
Devika Rani was streets ahead of him.”

However, Ashok Kumar was slowly being infected by the film bug. It did
not take him long to reject life as a tax inspector and sign up for another film
Achhut Kanya (Untouchable Girl) in which he would play the lead male role
opposite Devika. In 1955, talking to Bunny Reuben, he would say he wished he
had become a tax inspector. What pleasure he said it would have given him to
summon the stars to his cubicle and shout at them for not paying their taxes but

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Bollywood; A History

this was a tongue in cheek remark. He never really regretted going into films
and Achhut Kanya was to prove a seminal film both for Bombay Talkies and for
Ashok Kumar.

The Hindu, the highly respected but deeply conservative Madras-based paper,
which had begun a weekly page of film, news and comment—itself an indication
of the growing power of the new medium—summed up the film as follows:

She, [Devika], appears as a Harijan girl, in love with a Brahmin youth, portrayed
by Ashok Kumar. Caste barriers and religious bigotry stand in the way of their
union.The boy is forced into a marriage to a wife he cannot love and the girl to one
of her own class. Wisely, afraid of their love, they keep out of each others way, till
chance throws them together at a village fair. Inflamed by jealousy and egged on by
neighbours, the girl's husband mistakes this meeting and a fierce encounter ensues
between the Brahmin youth and the untouchable husband at a level-crossing. A
tram comes along. The girl, in an effort to part the combatants, is run over and
killed, a human sacrifice at the altar of bigotry.

Ashok Kumar was far from happy with his acting. In one scene when Devika
tells him they could never marry as she was an untouchable girl, Ashok was
required to clasp his hands in agony and cry out, “Oh, God! why did you not
make me an untouchable?”

After the shooting was completed, Osten came over and said “Mr Kumar,
your two hands clasped each other so hard that it seemed they would break into
pieces.”

Osten had blundy told him that his acting did not matter, and while he must
try to do his best, the story would pull the film through. Achhut Kanya was a good
example of this. This was a time when law and precedent obstructed intercaste
marriages and firmly supported the ostracism of the untouchable. But Indian
politicians, and all the leaders of the Indian National Congress, had called for an
end to this dreadful, age-old scourge of Hinduism, with Gandhi going so far as to
denounce untouchability as “a plague.” Other leaders like Nehru were warning
that independence in itself would not be enough, that Hindu society must also
reform itself from within. Against this background, this was the right film, made
at the right time. It showed that Hindi films had a conscience; it was not just
about neat plots, the ready-made ironies, the popular yearning for doom; Indian
film-makers, like their counterparts m the West, did not shrink from stories that
attacked implicitly, and often, explicitly, the canons of Hindu society.

The film’s success was also due to the acting of Devika Rani, which was
compared by some critics to that of Garbo. The Hindu considered it “easily the
best Devika Rani film to date.”

The Indians also took to the songs in the film. This being before the days
of play back singing, both Devika and Ashok sang their own songs. Their duet

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115

“Mein bun ki chirya, bun bun boloun re” (“I am a forest bird who sings from grove
to grove”), became a great hit song (and remains a classic) which, long after the
film had become history, was being sung by Indians. What was not known, and
only emerged later, was that the music director, Saraswati Devi, had enormous
problems during the recording of the song and almost despaired of getting the
pair to keep in tune.

Himansu was very keen for politicians to see the film but, despite a plea by
Himansu, Gandhi showed no interest in the film; this was one of those foreign
Western mediums he never came to terms with. But Jawaharlal Nehru, his
daughter, Indira, and Sarojini Naidu, a famous poetess and a leading Congress
politician, came to see a special screening of the film at Bombay Talkies. Sarojini
did fall asleep during it but woke in time to hear Ashok Kumar sing. “Who’s
that boy? He’s singing so well,” she exclaimed in wonder. Ashok, sitting next
to her, beamed with pleasure as he said, “That’s me, up there on the screen.”
Nehru not only stayed awake but liked it so much that after that, whenever he
saw Ashok Kumar, he would say, “Hello, hero, Kaise ho? (how are you?)” Osten
managed to screen the film at Josef Goebbel’s Ministry of Propaganda in Berlin,
although what the Nazis made of a film preaching universal love cutting across
caste barriers, is hard to say.

The success of the film meant the Indian screen had a pairing that could
rival the ones in HoOywood, at least in the eyes of the Indian audiences. Ashok
Kumar, though, was all too aware of his own inadequacies as an actor and,
advised by Himansu, he began to vvatch Hollywood- movies to try and study
voice control, gestures, and postures. He was dreadfully worried about what
to do with his hands. What, he wondered, should he do with them when he
was talking, standing still or playing an emotional scene? He closely studied
HoDywood actors to find a formula that would work for him.

Himansu had first advised him to study Ronald Coleman; soon Ashok moved
on to films by Spencer Tracy, Leslie Howard and Charles Laughton. But his best
acting coach, as he would later confess, was his own brother-in-law, Sasadhar,
who urged him to consider the scenes he was acting in, study the dialogue, and

personalise it so he could convey emotions and feelings.

By now Bombay Talkies had settled down to a schedule of about three films a
pear, although in some years, like 1938, only two were made. If films like Achhut
Kanya were path-breaking, social films, Bombay Talkies did foray into the staple
diet of Indian cinema mythologicals, although it only made one movie of this
Seare, perhaps because the studio’s fortunes were then in decline.This was Savitri,
produced in Hindi in 1937, with Devika Rani and Ashok Kumar in the lead.

<i-. This story firom the Mahabharata had already been the basis of five different
! MWnd films in four Indian languages, but the Bombay Talkies version was
^jj^Dired for its unique delicacy. The story tells of Savitri, daughter of King
MluWapati, who ruled thousands of years ago. Savitri marries a man fated to die.

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117

But she loves her husband so much that by her piety, penance, and devotion she
wins back his life from Yama, the god of death. The story has a quality akin to
that of the Orpheus story—but with a happy ending.

However, the Bombay Talkies story could not have a happy ending. War was
coming and with it changes that would overwhelm the studio. In 1939, the studio
had every reason to feel satisfied. After a few films, which had failed to make
much of an impression, it found a new female star, Leela Chitnis, and paired
her opposite Ashok Kumar in Kangan. The film was a hit, reviving the studio’s
fortunes. Ashok and Leela radiated chemistry on screen, helped by the fact that
there was competition between them. Leela, making her debut, was determined
not to be outshone by the man who was already a screen idol. “I used to say
to myself,” she later wrote in her autobiography, Chanderi Duniyet, “He should
not surpass me... And he thought likewise about me. It was a secret competition
between us.”

Not that Chitnis was overly impressed with Ashok Kumar’s acting ability.
She accepted he was good-looking but found his voice more seductive than
his acting, “As an actor his personality seemed unimpressive. And there was no
liveliness in his eyes.” Ashok, on the other hand, was much taken by how Leela
used her eyes to ‘speak’ and he decided to try and bring some of that quality to
his acting. India’s first great screen hero was learning on the job.

Kangan was to be the last movie Osten directed and he could not even complete
the film before war intervened. Within days of Neville Chamberlain announcing
Britain was at war with Germany, LinUthgow, the Viceroy in Delhi, without
consulting a single Indian, announced India, too, was at war.This had an immediate
impact on the Germans at Bombay Talkies. Osten, Wirsching and aU the others
were interned and Kangan had to be completed by Osten’s two assistants, N.R.
Acharya and Najam Naqvi. That was the end of the foreign era in Indian films,
and Garga perceptively points out that while Osten and Wirsching, who remained
in India after the war, and died there, brought much technical expertise, the films
“lacked the elusive spirit and insight into the everyday incidents of Indian life.”

All of Osten’s fourteen films were made by the same production team, so they
tended to be repetitive. Eight months after war broke out, and just as Hitler
launched his Blitzkrieg, Himansu, himself, was dead. He died of a nervous
breakdown in May 1940, just forty-eight years old. If Phalke is the father of the
Indian cinema, then Rai must be credited with not only having the ability to
bring together great artistic talent under one roof but, also, with making sure that
Bombay, not any other centre, and certainly not Calcutta, would be the home
of the Indian cinema.

On Ashok Kumar’s first fraught day of shooting, in order to calm the nerves
of his new star, Rai had sent him a special lunch from his own lunch pack to his
room. It was chicken soup, roast chicken, pudding and sweets. This was special
treatment for a man he knew was crucial to his movie. But, in general, and in

contrast to what happened in the rest of the country, Rai practised the social
equality his movies preached. So all company members, of whatever caste, ate
together at the company canteen, a huge statement in India for the 1930s. It was
even said that top actors, on occasion, helped to clean the floor. Rai, perhaps with
memories of Gandhi’s visit to Santiniketan, insisted on this.

Was this symbolism or did it have a wider impact? Many historians and
sociologists have tried to come to a judgement. P. R. Ramachandra Rao,
reviewing the achievements of the Indian film at a twenty-fifth anniversary
celebration of the industry, and with Bombay Talkies very much in mind, felt
that Indian films had made a great contribution in this regard. “It has unsettled
the placid contentment of the Indian masses, it has filled the minds of youth with
new longings and it is today a potent force in national life.”

In few places round the world would a film industry have been praised for
unsettling public contentment. Yet it is possible that film was indeed shaping
Indian attitudes, and doing so in a variety of ways. Bombay Talkies played a major
part in this, a fact recognised years later when the Government of independent
India was to bestow on Devika Rani the title of Padma Shri, one of the tides
independent India bestows on its people. The magazine Filmfare in its issue of
May 14, 1958 used the occasion to look back to the 1930s and the first days of
Bombay Talkies, declaring: “It was but natural that Bombay Talkies soon came to
stand for new values.”

Bombay Talkies carried on for many years after Rai’s death but in many ways
its most remarkable period had ended with its founder.

Making a Nation Through Films

In 1939, a few months before Rai died, Indian cinema marked twenty-five years
of its existence.The Silver Jubilee celebrations were lavishly organised in Bombay.
Several souvenir brochures were brought out and the aU-India Motion Picture
Congress was held. It was opened by S. Satyamurthy, which was significant in
that it showed that at least some people in the Congress were interested in films.
Gandhi clearly was not, but Satyamurthy was a powerful figure in the party and
the party was just then in a position of some power. If its goal of freedom for the
country had still not been realised, it did now hold ministerial office in provincial
Governments under the limited regional autonomy, granted to the Indians by the
British in the 1935 Act.Through many negotiations, and round table conferences,
the 1935 Act had been the end product of the 1930 civil disobedience campaign
of Gandhi. Indeed, a Congress ministry ruled the provincial Government of
Bombay. If real power still rested with the British governor of the province, the
local Indian ministers did have some power to affect change.

The conference was meant to demonstrate that the cinema had arrived as
an important social force to help with this change, although it was recognised
that deep problems remained. Chandulal Shah, who chaired the conference,
highlighted the problems, rather than the successes, in his opening address, and
bemoaned the continuing lack of finance, the failure by banks or other organised
sources of finance to provide money, and also the internal dissensions within the
industry.

Shah’s analysis was reasonable and these problems would never be solved, but
he was also making a point in front of a political audience and, in that sense,
being unduly pessimistic. He down-played how far the industry had come and,
in particular, Bombay. Indeed, it was Bombay’s ability to move quicker than any
other Indian city that had helped Rai make Bombay Talkies so prominent, an
ability the city had demonstrated even before Rai had chosen Bombay as the
home of his studio. Back in 1927, when Rai was still in London, no sooner had
the Government announced it was setting up the film inquiry, than a quickly-

Makmg a Nation Through Films

119

convened Bombay Cinema and Theatre Trade Association was formed to give
unified evidence. This led, in 1932, to the creation of The Motion Picture
Society of India and then, in 1939, to The Indian Motion Picture Producers
Association of India. Calcutta and other centres viewed this Bombay activity
with alarm, but they could not get their own act together. The Bombay-based
organisations made representations to the Government on behalf of the industry.
The existence of these organisations also meant that Bombay became the place
where industry data was gathered and Bombay was able to write the narrative
of how the movie industry was developing. Members of these organisations
brought out publications that emerged in the 1930s and which have formed
the basis of all subsequent interpretations of the role of the studios, such as Y.A.
Fazalbhoy’s 1939 The Indian Film: a Review, collations by B.V. Dharap, and other
souvenir publications.

Shah himself had been busy making films during this period. His Ranjit
Movietones, as the studio had been renamed after sound was introduced, was
producing twelve movies a year, as opposed to three by Bombay Talkies. In
terms of the sheer number of films made, Ranjit made more films than its two
main rivals in western India, Bombay Talkies and Prabhat. Up to 1940, Bombay
Talkies had made eighteen films in six years, Prabhat made thirty-one and Ranjit
made sixty-six. By the time Ranjit finally finished making films in 1963, over
150 films were made. However, in a common story of Indian cinema, the entire
original material of these films as lost in two fires in the studio’s vaults and
laboratories.

Ranjit Movietone was well equipped, with four sound stages, its own laboratory.

and a staff of 600. By the late 30s, Ranjit was being called ‘the film factory’, and
like a factory it churned out thrillers, musicals, and comedies. However, Shah was
always on the look out for new things. His 1939 film, Achhut, was another look
at‘the untouchables’, but, unlike Achhut Kanya, this was not a love story on the
practices of Brahmins and other higher Hindu castes considering the lower caste
as unclean. Shah, who wrote and directed the film, took the bold step of showing
how, in order to get out of this ‘Hindu hell’, the ‘untouchable’ in the film coverts
to Christianity and his daughter, played by Gohar, is adopted by a well-to-do
family. She soon, however, finds herself back among ‘the untouchables’. The
reaction to this situation is the central drama of the movie.

Shah also had directors, such as Abdul Rashid Kardar, make Thokar in 1939
and Pagal in 1940, where Prithvirai played a doctor who ends up in the lunatic
asylum he was meant to manage. These films are both regarded as the best films
of this highly-regarded director. Kidar Sharma, Nandlal Jaswantal and Jayant
I ■- Desai, who made the much praised Sant Tulsidas in 1939, also made significant
K, P movies for Shah.

Shah was not the only Bombay rival of Bombay Talkies. Four years before Rai
up in Malad, Sagar had been set up by Chimanlal B. Desai and Dr Ambalal Patel,

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Bollywood: A History

with help from Ardeshir Irani. They had brought Ezra Mirza, who had started
as an actor with Madan in Calcutta in 1923, and had a stint in the Hollywood
cutting-room of Carl Laemmle’s Universal Pictures Corporation. Sagar made
Zarina in 1932, which was about a gypsy girl who was clearly influenced by
Hollywood. The movie was debunked as an “occidental transplantation ” but it
showed some fine touches and much technical merit.

Sagar was no less active compared to Ranjit. Between 1931 and 1940, Sagar
made only one less movie than Ranjit. What all this indicates is that if Bombay
Talkies, New Theatres and Prabhat were pace-setters and moulders of fashion in
the first decade of sound, there were a number of other companies of a similar
structure that achieved success and had influence in shaping India’s cinematic
taste in this period. Of course, there were also success stories in the various
regions reflecting the fact that India was more of a continent, rather than a
country.

A listing, by location, of the production companies as printed in the 1938
Indian Cinematograph Year Book illustrates this point well:

Bangalore 2

Kolhapur 6

Poona 4

Bezwada 2

Kumbakonam 1

Rajahmundry 2

Bombay 34

Lahore 4

Salem 6

Calcutta 19

Lucknow I

Tanjore i

Coiambatore 8

Madras 36

Trichinopoly 2

Dharwar 1

Madurai 7

Tirupur 2

Erode 2

Nellore i

Vizagapatam 1

That India’s coastal regions should have taken a lead is not surprising. The
British conquest of India had meant that the coastal towns of Calcutta, Bombay
and Madras, towns the British had either created or, like Bombay, received as

Making a Nation Through Films

121

a present from the Portuguese and then developed, had usurped the historic
position of places in north and central India, which had been the birthplace ot
Indian culture and civilisation over the centuries.

However, this conquest also created a dilemma. There was no common
language spoken in these three centres. Most of the people in Bombay, Calcutta
and Madras had their own mother tongues, which were very distinct from Hindi.
It was Bengali in Calcutta, Tamil in Madras and Marathi in Bombay. And, while
Bengali and Marathi shared some common roots with Hindi, Tamil did not.
Nevertheless, a picture made in Bengali or Marathi would make little sense to
a Hindi speaker. In contrast, there was little or no film activity in the heartland
of the regions where Hindi was the mother tongue. Lucknow, the capital of
the United Provinces, as it was called then had, as our 1938 list shows, a solitary
film company. Otherwise, the Hindi belt of the north of India barely registered.
Lahore did, but Urdu was the main language there, not Hindi.

Rai’s decision to choose Bombay, and to make films in Hindi, had highlighted
this aspect of the Indian cinema. Indians had to find a language to make films
and then make it acceptable to all Indians. Neal Gabler in An Empire of Their
Oum has explained how ‘the Jews, in building Hollywood, imposed their own
version of America.’These were Jews, immigrants from Eastern Europe, keen to
be accepted by mainstream America. However, one thing that Hollywood did
not have to worry about was to find a language. The language was English.

The British had imposed English on the Indians but this was spoken at best by
a tiny minority, a figure of 2% was much quoted. It could not be the language of
an Indian film. Indian film-makers had to figure out which of the many Indian
languages they should use. Although Sanskrit is the mother language of most
Indian languages, it had been a dead language for centuries, only used by Hindus
for prayers. A film in Sanskrit would make little sense. Subhas Bose, impressed by
howAtaturk had Romanised the old Turkish script, had argued that the common
language should be in the Roman script. This would never be accepted.

A common language for India had long been a very controversial political
issue in India. The British, seeking to justify their occupation of India, had
debunked the Indian nationalists’ argument that India was a nation by pointing
out that there wasn’t even a language common to all Indians. The Congress
decided that once India was free, Hindi would become the national language.
It was the mother tongue of more Indians than any other language, and was
generally understood in most parts of the country, apart from the south where
It IS still not spoken. There would be a reorganisation of the provinces along
linguistic fines once the British left.The British had put together huge provinces
that suited the administrative convenience of a conquering power. The Congress
planned to divide the country into many more states according to the language
tpoken in a particular region. The idea was that every Indian would speak two
languages: his or her own mother tongue and Hindi.

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Bollywood; A History

But all this was in the future. The linguistic reorganisation of India did not
start until the 1950s, and it is still going on, with the result that India is forever
creating new states. In the 1930s, with the arrival of sound and film-makers
seeking to appeal to a very diverse country, a decision had to be made on the
language of an all-Indian film. Despite the fact that the heartland of the Hindi
speakers in the north made little or no contribution to the development of
the new medium, Hindi was chosen. But this left the film-makers with a huge
problem—it meant most of them were working in a medium which was their
second language at best, and sometimes their third. It also meant that making a
film involved shooting it in more than one language.

The great film-makers of the 1930s were always having to work in a language
which they had learned fairly recently. So, in Calcutta there was Prince Barua,
whose native tongue was Assamese, and who also spoke fluent Bengali and
English; in Poona,V. Shantaram, whose native tongue was Marathi; and the two
partners of Bombay Talkies, Rai and Devika Rani, were both products of Bengali
culture. It is interesting to note that when in 2003 V. Shantaram’s son, Kiran,
wrote a joint biography of his father, he used the Marathi term for mother ‘Aai’
throughout the book. Yet film-makers all had to try and make films in Hindi.
Even in Madras, speakers of Tamil were becoming producers of Hindi films.

It could not have been easy for the film-makers of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras
to accept Hindi. Bengal prided itself on a long tradition of Bengali culture which had
already thrived for four centuries going back to the era of Chandidas andVidyapathi.
The Marathi language also had a long literary heritage, including revered poet-saints
of the thirteenth century, and the beloved Tukaram of the seventeenth century. As for
Tamil, it claimed a literature going back at least to the fourth century.

In comparison to all this, Hindi was a new development with a very limited
literary hinterland. For many producers it was as devoid of associations as
Esperanto. Yet the complex nature of the Indian linguistic map meant a film
that wanted to reach out beyond its regional borders had to be in Hindi. It
did, however, leave a legacy. If many observers have found in Indian films an
increasing rootlessness, one reason may be that many of its finest talents have
had to exert themselves in a language not of their own, and spoken by people
from whom they were both physically, and culturally, removed. This became, and
remains, one of the great agonies of Hindi films.

The nature of the country as a continent with many languages, dictated the
way the film industry developed, and throughout the 1930s the geographical
pattern of the Indian film industry underwent many changes. Almost from
the beginning, two opposing trends were at work. One tendency was for each
language area to develop a production centre or centres of its own. This trend
appealed to regional pride, made efficient use of talent speaking the local
language, and created regional stars. It had the disadvantage that a wide range of
technical services could barely be supported by every language area.

Making a Nation Through Films

123

A concentration in three large centres emerged—Bombay, Calcutta and
Madras—each producing in the language of its area but also attempting, often
through imported talent, to reach into and exploit other language areas. From
the beginning, the larger centres felt that they needed to work in more than one
language and to spread their wings beyond their immediate geographical area.
The smaller centres, on the other hand, concentrated on one language.

Sometimes, a film script, after proving a success in one language, would be
acted in another language, with an entirely new cast. Devdas, after its success in
Bengali, was repeated by New Theatres in Hindi and later in Tamil. A producer,
however, could save costs by shooting two or more versions simultaneously. The
‘double versions’ began almost immediately. Each separate shot was done first in
one language, then in another.The operation sometimes called for two complete
casts, although dance numbers often served both versions.

On the studio floor, the shout of‘Bengali take!’ would be followed a few
minutes later by ‘Hindi take!’ It became a very common cry in New Theatres
and in other Calcutta studios. Occasionally, a bi-lingual actor would appear in
both films of a double version. But the prevailing tendency was to use double
casts, and this_,was one reason why film companies grew rapidly in size.The large
companies acquired acting staffs representing two or more major languages.

Calcutta almost immediately achieved a monopoly over Bengali production,
using this as a base for forays into other language markets, especially Hindi. The
Bengali-Hindi double version became a standard activity at New Theatres and
other Calcutta companies—such as the East India Film Company, which was
launched in 1932.

Bombay and nearby cities, including Poona and Kolhapur, meanwhile took
charge of Marathi production, using this as a base for incursions into Hindi
and other language areas. In theory, Calcutta should have cornered the Hindi
market. Bihar was the neighbouring state, and beyond that was Uttar Pradesh,
both strongholds of Hindi. But Calcutta was a more distinctive Bengali city,
while Bombay did not quite belong to the native Mahrastrians.The Mahrastrians
were not a majority in the city; there was a large Gujarati and Parsi population
which spoke Gujarati, and the city boasted of being cosmopolitan. Bombay
even had its own cricket team, distinct from the Maharashtra team. As Bombay
grew in prosperity, and more Hindi-speaking people were attracted to the city
m the form of villagers, who migrated from the rural areas to the urban areas of
Bombay, the city began to take a more prominent role in Hindi production and
also to develop its own brand of Hindi, which became known as ‘the Bombaiya
Hindi.’ In time, Hindi films would take this film language nationwide and make
tt almost a distinct language.

The two leading languages of southern India, Tamil andTelugu, were for some
y®ars the focus of mighty struggles. When sound was introduced in Bombay
Calcutta, there was no sound-production equipment in Madras, the centre

124

BollywGGd; A History

of the Tamil area. The large Tamil market looked open to others. In 1932 and
1933, Tamil films were produced in Bombay by Ardeshir Irani’s Imperial Film
Company and by Sagar Movietone; in Calcutta, by New Theatres and the East
India Film Company; and in Poona, by Prabhat. For these films, the companies
usually arranged junkets of Tamil-speaking actors from Madras to come to
Calcutta, and to Bombay or Poona for the shoot. This sort of activity stirred
southerners into action.

Among those in Madras who had some film experience was K. Subrahmanyam,
a young criminal lawyer with a passion for the arts. In the late 1920s, while
getting a foothold in law, he had earned money on the side selling stories for
silent films to a newly-formed company. Associated Films. This company had
been started by a professional strong man. Raja Sandow who, after playing
hero roles for Chandulal Shah in Bombay, decided to take up production in his
native province. Associated Films soon ‘failed for want of business-like instinct’ as
stated in Who Is Who in Indian Filmland. Meanwhile, the young criminal lawyer
had won local notoriety as a film expert. In 1934, a Madras financier, intent on
producing a Tamil-language film, invited Subrahmanyam to write and direct it.

There were still no available facilities other than three glass-roofed studios,
and it was decided, therefore, to shoot in the open air. One difSculty was that
the financier had had a quarrel with a former business associate who came each
day and parked his baby Austin close to the production. As soon as he heard
“Silence, please!....sound—camera!” he would start honking his horn. This
forced the financier to settle with his former associate. And, although Pavalakkodi
was completed, and was a box-office success (it had fifty songs), it persuaded
Subrahmanyam that there were better ways of making films.

That same year an entrepreneur in Salem, T. R. Sundaram, took a group of
actors to Calcutta, rented the Madan studio in ToUygunge for three months at a
cost of Rs25,ooo, and completed a Tamil language film that proved so profitable
in the south that he went north for six more junkets, all being profitable.
Meanwhile, Subrahmanyam was offered financial backing for similar junkets, for
which he rented the East India Film Company studio in Calcutta. On the first
such junket he took sixty-five people, renting a three-storey house for them for
three months, and a car to shuttle them to and from the East India studio. The
studio supplied all technical personnel, including its editors. All the films were
financial triumphs. Other producers arranged similar trips to Bombay.

The visits, leading to expanding profits, spurred construction of modern
studios in the south. Several such studios were built during 1935-36—in Madras,
Salem, and Coimbatore. These included a studio built jointly by several Madras
producers, organised as the Motion Picture Producers Combine. Thereafter,
Madras was never dependant on the studios in the north. The producers in the
Madras area now began to take charge of Tamil production, and gradually also
took control of production for the nearby Telugu area, as weU as the important

Making a Nation Through Films

125

Kannada and Malayalam language groups. By the 1940s, Madras, having grown
powerful through its grip on these markets, also began to make astonishingly
successful forays into Flindi production. This success was also helped by the
decline of Calcutta, particularly following the partition of Bengal.

Vasan had been knocking at the doors of the film world for some time. Born
in Thiruthuraipoondi, a small town in Madras state, he came to the big city of
Madras to study, and then started an advertising agency. He soon had enough
money to buy a small printing press and launched Anandavikatan, a popular
weekly. His first forays into films were when his novel, Sati Leelavati, was made
into a film in 1936. In 1938, he took over the distribution of films of the Madras
United Artists Corporation. In 1941, there w.as a fire in the studio of the Motion
Picture Producers Combine. Like most studios in India, it was uninsured, as
no insurance company would take the risk. When the partners decided to sell
the charred premises, Vasan bought it, did some rebuilding, and launched the
production company, Gemini Studios. During the war, the firm made a number
of films not knowing what the best kind of film was, including a mythological
film, a stunt film and a couple of love stories. However, aU this was a prelude to
Chandrahkha in 1948.

It cost Rs 3 million to make Chandralekh, but grossed Rs 20 million at the
box office. The film, where rw'o princes fight over a royal dancer, had taken
seven hundred days to shoot and Vasan would borrow heavily for it. Vasan was
persuaded to make the film in Hindi and to “retain the long and mid-shots
intact, and retake the close-ups along with the songs and comedy scenes.”

The film proved such a success—its drum dance is remembered even today—
that 603 prints of the Hindi version of Chandrahkha were made. The film was
even released in the United States— ‘Chandra’ —with English subtitles! Vasan
believed that films were meant to entertain and were meant to be tailored to
the ordinary man. Colossal production values, huge sets, mammoth dances, and
thousands of extras were his hallmark. Thus, his films were more akin to variety

entertainment programmes rather than true cinema.

In the 1950S, Gemini Pictures came out with films both in Tamil and Hindi
and these Hindi films included Mr. Sampat (1952), Insaniyat (1955), R'ij Tilak
(1958), and Paigam (1959). There were others from Madras and elsewhere in the

south, who were also attracted to Hindi movies. A.V Meiyappan Chettiar of
AVM Studios, and Venus Krishnamurthy, both from Madras, and S.M.S. Naidu
of Coimbatore’s Pakshiraja Studios. Then, in the 1960s, came B. Nagi Reddy of
Vijaya Vauhini Studios. Through the 1950s, by making films both in Tamil and
Hindi, Madras would in some years surpass Bombay in terms of the volume of
film production.

The rise of Madras in the 1950s meant, of course, a reverse flow of the journeys
made by film people in the 1930s to Calcutta and Bombay to make films. At
that time, they had taken their actors and actresses across India, camped in these

12B

Bollywood: A History

Making a Nation Through Films

127

cities, and made the films. Now, southern executives would journey to Bombay,
sign up stars, supporting actors and actresses, music directors, and singers, and fly
them out to Madras, set them up in hotels and shoot the film on the sort of tight
schedule which was becoming very foreign in Bombay.

Pran, who by then was being permanently cast as the villain of Hindi cinema,
recalls how there was a method, and a plan for a film shoot unlike the casual
style that Bombay had increasingly come to adopt. “Everybody was totally work-
oriented. Much more work was accomplished day-to-day in Madras than was
ever being done back in Bombay. They were serious about film-making—the
south Indians used to work more, and gossip less. We learnt discipline from them,
and to be punctual, also.”

The southern Hindi movie became known as ‘made in South India’ Hindi
films, but there was never any danger that Madras would take over from Bombay
as the movie capital of India. The southern Indian movie-makers had shrewdly
judged the money to be made out of Hindi movies. While they could retain their
own language specialties, the Hindi market provided the more lucrative target.
This was where the big stakes were and this was the language that could describe
itself as truly Indian. Bombay was so firmly entrenched as the headquarters of the
all-Indian movie that it could not be displaced as the capital of Hindi movies.

There was also a problem for regional centres, and Madras in particular,.
The drive by independent India to make Hindi the national language was not
welcomed by the regional centres, such as Bengal. It was most actively resented
in Madras, where a political party called the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
(DMK) was set up. Hostility to Hindi was only one of the many motivating
factors for the party. It also fed on the strong anti-Brahmin feeling in the region.
The Congress leaders tended to be Brahmins, and there was also some talk of
secession from the Indian Union, although this was discarded in later years.
Films proved very useful for the party, with many of its leaders, including the
charismatic C.N. Annadurai, being from the film world.Tamil films were used in
spreading the message so effectively that, in the 1960s, it became the dominant
political party of the state of Madras, and came to power. The state was renamed
Tamil Nadu, the land of the Tamils. Himansu, even before he had come back to
India, knew Hindi had to be the language of the all-Indian film and by the time
he died nobody would question Bombay’s right to be the movie capital of India,
or that Hindi would be the language of what became known as Bollywood.

Compare this with how easy it was for Hollywood to become the movie
capital of America, and then the world, and the reasons which prompted films
to decamp from the-eastern seaboard of America for the west coast. The move
from New York and New Jersey in the early 1900s was dictated by the weather,
Californian sunshine ensuring natural light at a time when electric lights were
not powerful enough. California movie-makers could also escapeThomas Edison.
Edison owned almost aU the patents relevant to motion picture production and

in the east, movie producers acting independently of Edison’s Motion Picture
Patents Company, were often sued by Edison and his agents. Edison did send his
agents to California, but a movie-maker m Los Angeles could easily slip away to
Mexico before the agent arrived.

Rai and other film-makers of India had a much trickier task. They had the
task of nation-building through films and that at a time when India was still not
free, and when there was no certainty when it might be free, or what shape this
freedom would take. In India, films were an agent of a much wider social change,
of making a new country from a very old one.

The Children of Rai

Rai’s death saw his wife, Devika Rani, take charge and she quickly appointed
Sasadhar Mukjeijee and Aniiya Chakraborty, who had started as an extra and
then caught Devika’s eye and moved up the ladder, as the producers. For a time
this appeared to work very well and, in the early years of the war, Bombay
Talkies produced a number of successful films, many of which even charted
new territory. Naya Sansar in 1941, set in the newspaper industry and scripted
by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, who was himself an assistant editor at The Bombay
Chronicle, was a critical success, if not quite a commercial one.

Two years later, in 1943, came a movie which closely resembled Walter
Wagner’s 1938 film, Algiers, which was itself a Hollywood remake of the Jean
Gabin classic, Pepe le Moko.

Ashok Kumar’s biographer, the script-writer, Nabendu Ghosh, says Sasadhar,
Ashok and Gyan Mukeijee, another science student of Meghnad Saha, who had
been lured into films, devised the script after studying a book on Hollywood
script-writing by Francis Marion, which had a scene-by-scene analysis of some
twenty early Hollywood classics.

The result was Kismet, the first classic Hindi thriller, where Ashok Kumar
played a crook with a heart of gold who robs, in order to help a once great actress
- played by a new' heroine, Mumtaz Shanti — who had fallen on hard times. After
many ups and downs, it all ends well.

But, as Kismet was being completed, the tensions latent in Bombay
Talkies burst open. This appears to have been based on intense personality
differences rather than any great ideological or economic reasons. In the
years immediately after Himansu’s death, Devika had allowed Sasadhar and
Ashok to run the show but, slowly, she began to rely almost exclusively on
Amiya Chakraborty, and made it clear he was the man who had her blessing.
Sasadhar and Amiya did not get on and one day Sasadhar gave Devika an
ultimatum; either Amiya goes or I go. Amiya stays, said Devika, so Sasadhar
walked out.

The Children of Rai

129

Soon after came Ashok Kumar’s turn. He was doing the final editing of Kismet
when Aniiya asked to see the rushes and also told Ashok to leave the editing
suite. Ashok left but in such a temper that when he returned to his office he
punched the wooden partition with his fists and drew blood. He decided to
leave for good and would have left immediately but security guards prevented
him from seeing Devika Rani that day. Soon after, he left, as did Rai Bahadur
Chunilal, the general manager, Dattaram Fie, editor, and Gyan Mukeijee, the
director of Kismet; they all joined Sasadhar in setting up a new studio, Filmistan
(the Land of Filnrs). It is interesting to note that m this clash of personalities the
leading persons of Bombay Talkies w'ere all Bengalis, illustrating the well-known
Indian saying that four Bengalis produce five arguments.

However, perhaps there was more to it than just personality clashes. Money
clearly played a part—after all, Bombay Talkies had rivals. There was Chandulal
Shah’s Ranjit Movietones, and Shah was always willing to offer stars from other
studios large increases in their salaries, if they joined him at Ranjit.

Saadat Hasan Manto's memoir Stars from another Sky, describes how Ashok
Kumar became aware of money to be made as he became the great star of Indian
cinema. When Himansu Rai gave him a film start, he trebled his salary to RS250.
Ashok Kumar trembled as he took the salary packet home and was so nervous that
that night he had nightmares of being robbed. Malad then was the back of beyond
and a terrified Ashok kept the money hidden under his mattress. But, as Manto
says, “While Ashok was telling me this story, outside a film-maker from Calcutta
was waiting to see him. The contract was ready but Ashok did not sign it because
while he was offering Rs8o,000, Ashok was imsisting on Rsioo,ooo. And to think
that some years earlier he was at a loss to know what to do with Rs2S0" Certainly,
going off with his brother-in-law to make movies meant more money all round.

Ashok Kumar doubled his salary fioni Rsi,ooo to Rs2,ooo by joining Filmistan
and he now had the freedom to work for other film-makers. Following Kismet,
Ashok Kumar could literally name his price. Mehboob Khan, who had made a
reputation with several films, offered him one lakh (Rs 100,000), a magic figure
in India then, for the film Najma. By 1945, Debaki Bose was offering Rs2.5 lakh
(Rs25o,ooo) for Chandrsashekar, a film in which he was cast opposite Kanan Devi. In
that sense Kismet, and the spht from Bombay Talkies, could be said to have marked
the start of the end of the studio system in BoUywood. Studios continued to exist for
some time but Bombay Talkies-style studio system, and its very firm principle of an
actor being wedded to one studio, was slowly dissolving. Actors and actresses could
work for different studios and the big names, like Ashok Kumar, demanded very large
sums of money. Ghosh marks the moment as the one “where black money entered
the film industry and the studio system died out. All this happened in 1943.”

Indian film historians agree that the collapse of the system was due to the
laundering of black money earned by war-time profiteers, although a similar thing
had also occurred, but on a much smaller scale, at the end of the First World War.

130

Bollywood: A History

In the previous decade there was limited money in movies and it was fairly
well regulated. Ruby Myers, who acted as Sulochana was, perhaps, the biggest
star, and was paid Rs5,ooo a month.The cost of a completed picture was around
Rs40,ooo, and the profit-sharing ratio between producer and distributor was
60-40.The country had around 2,000 cinemas and overseas sales meant nothing,
round about Rs2,500 per picture.

Buqor Karanjia, who for many years edited the leading film magazines and
was active in the industry, in his memoir. Counting Blessings, has no doubt that
the Second World War changed everything;

The shortage of raw stock led to the pernicious licensing system, which in turn
became the breeding ground of corruption and indiscriminate freelancing by film
stars.When C.M.Trivedi, a producer, signed up the green-eyed Chandramohan (who
was then on the staff of New Theatres) for a film titled Apna Qha (Our House), the
freelancing system was born, with all the ills that came in its wake. The new money
that flooded the film industry included black market money, which coloured not
only the mode of payment, but the very mentality of film making. Realising that
the idolised stars were the key to immense profits, the new independent fly-by-
night producers, without a stake in the film industry, began to make offers to stars
on a per picture basis.The stars began to discover that they could earn more in a one
picture contract than they could in a year of employment in a studio. They began
to leave the big companies that had studios of their own. Freelancing became the
practice, rather than the exception it had hitherto been. By the end of 1941, various
stars were working in three or four films simultaneously. The number rose to seven
or eight films and, in the case of one particular star, a dozen films.

The split meant Kismet was released with its creative team no longer at
Bombay Talkies, but they drew much comfort from the fact that the film was
one of the great commercial successes of the Hindi cinema—in one Calcutta
theatre, Roxy, it ran for three years continuously. And, as we have seen, Ashok
Kumar, and the others involved in its making, could use Kismet to make the sort
of money no actor had previously made in the Indian cinema.

Devika Rani was determined to carry on and, while Bombay Talkies did not
produce many more outstanding films, even as Kismet was being made she had
managed to follow the example of her dead husband and discover a young actor
who would became one of the greatest of all Indian actors: Dilip Kumar. And like
so much of the Bollywood story it came by chance, and in the most unexpected
of places, far from Bombay in the north Indian hill station of Nanital.

Devika had gone there with Amiya to look for suitable locations. Dilip Kumar,
whose real name was Mohammed Yusuf Khan, had come to buy fruits for his
father’s fruit business. A Pathan from Peshawar, not far from what today would be
Taliban country in north West Pakistan, he had come to Bombay with his father.

The Children of Rai

131

Mohammed Sarwar Khan, when he was a young boy. He had been schooled
in the city, and his great ambition was to play Test cricket. By the time he met
Devika Rani, not yet twenty years old, he was the mainstay of his father’s fruit
business in Bombay, and was looking to expand it.

Yusuf Khan, despite his age, was no callow youth. Not long before his meeting
with Devika, a quarrel with his father had taken him to Poona where he had got to
know British soldiers and often played football with them. They called him Chicko
or Genghis, being the only type of Khan they knew. While Yusuf got on socially
with them he, wearing his nationalist shirt, also argued with the soldiers about the
hypocritical British position during the war: they said they were fighting the war for
fi«edom yet were denying India its freedom. He even spent a night in jail, although
this does not appear to have been due to his nationalist activity. But while in was in
jail Gandhi, observed a fast, andYusuf, refused to eat the prison breakfast.

Now reunited with his father, he had come to Nanital on the annual search
for fruit that took him to the Himalayan foothills of India where some of the
best fruit of the sub-continent can be found.

It is not quite clear how he met Devika Rani. A psychiatrist who Devika was
indebted to. Dr Masani, played a part, but whoever introduced them, meet they
did and she asked him to come and see her at Bombay Talkies.

Yusuf Khan’s biographers cannot agree what made Yusuf go to Bombay
Talkies. He was well aware of how his father disapproved of films. Sarwar Khan
was a close friend of Lala Baseshwarnath, father of Prithviraj Kapoor, both
families hailed from Peshawar, and Sarwar would often chastise his friend saying
“Baseshwarnath, how can you allow your son to act with naachenealisT’ (The
word for professional dancers who are held in very low esteem in India).

Yusuf Khan would tell one biographer that while the business was making
money he felt his life lacked something. Whatever the reason, he was so eager
that he turned up at Bombay Talkies on a Sunday morning and, finding it closed,
turned up the next day, although the meeting with Devika did not go well, or at
least that is what Yusuf thought. This was very understandable.

She asked him four questions: did he act, would he like to act, did he smoke,
and did he speak Urdu. The answers were no, yes, no, yes. After which he was
imperiously dismissed from her presence. But, then, she wrote to him, asking him
to come back, although she was still not sure what to do with him. Fortunately
for Yusuf Khan, Amiya Chakraborty took a shine to him, and so did Hiten
Chowdhury, another import from Bengal who was soon to become Controller

Productions at Bombay Talkies.

But before he could act, Devika decided Yusef Khan needed a new name and
gave him a choice of three: Jehangir,Vasudev or Dilip Kumar. It is not clear why
she felt Yusuf was not suitable. This was a time of growing Hindu-Muslim tension
and she may have felt Yusuf would not go down well. Yusuf Khan told Bunny
Reuben, one of his many biographers, that, when presented with the choice, out

132

Bollywccd: A Histcry

of sheer nerves he chooses Dilip Kumar, even though he liked another name.
Another biographer says he liked Jehangir but an adviser to Devika suggested
Dilip Kumar and this appealed to her as it was similar to Ashok Kumar.

Amiya Chakraborty cast Dilip Kumar in the film, Ju'ur Bhata, which was shot
in May 1942, with Dilip just nineteen years and five months old. Ashok Kumar,
in his first movie, jumped before he was meant to; Dilip Kumar, in his first, ran
so fast when he was asked to rescue a heroine, that the director shouted ‘Cut!’
before he could reach the heroine. The camera could not follow him and, the
director told him, this is not a sports race but a movie. Like Ashok Kumar, but
perhaps even more so, he taught himself acting, and eventually became the
consummate movie actor of his time.

The film though proved unmemorable and Filtnindia described him as “an
anaemic addition to our film artistes. He needs a lot of vitamins and a prolonged
treatment of proteins before another picture can be risked with him.” But the film
has a footnote in Bollywood history. A bit part was played by an eighteen-year
old called Raj Kapoor,the son of Prithviraj,who had joined Amiya Chakraborty
as an assistant. This meant the two men,who would became the biggest stars
Bollywood has ever produced, were both in the same movie at the very start of
their parallel, and often contrasting, careers.

Jwar Bhata was not released until 1944 and, by 1946, Dilip Kumar had acted in
two more films. By now, however, Devika Rani was tiring of films. In 1946, she
married the Russian painter, Svetoslav Roerich and, in one of the great ironies
of the Bombay Talkies story, she sold the studio to Ashok Kumar, who bought it
in partnership with Savak Vacha, a colleague from Bombay Talkies with whom
he had just made a film for Filmistan called Shikari.They returned to find their
old company had debts of Rs 28 lakhs (Rs 2.8 million) and various frauds, some
of them committed by the directors themselves.

Even more worrying was the overall political situation. The war had ended but
India, which had seen httle war fighting, was now in turmoil as the pent-up feeling
for independence erupted. Gandhi’s Quit India movement of 1942 had been put
down with savage force by the British, turning India into, as a British official put
it, “an occupied and hostile country.” The British and their allies had won the war,
but the stunning defeats suffered by the British, and other white empires in Asia
at the hands of the Japanese, had destroyed the mystique of the white races in
the east. No longer could a handful of whites rule over milhons of browns. Even
those Indians who had been the most reliable collaborators of the British wanted
the British occupation to end. Immediately after the war the British Indian Navy,
based in Bombay, had revolted, and for a few days there was a near revolutionary
situation in the city. There were also growing Hindu-Muslim tensions.

Ashok Kumar and Vacha seemed impervious to all this and when they took
over Bombay Talkies, they employed mostly Muslims while dismissing many
Hindu employees who were redundant.

The Children of Rai

133

Saadat Hasan Manto, himself a Muslim working for them, feared a Hindu
backlash and warned them of the growing Hindu anger. Vacha received hate mail
from Hindus saying they would set fire to the studios, but be defiantly promised
to push anyone who dared into the burning studio. Ashok Kumar was just as
nonchalant about any religious strife and saw it as a passing madness that would
soon blow over. But as Manto says, “However, it never went away, this madness.
Instead, as time passed, it became more and more virulent.”

Ashok Kumar was right in the sense that for aU the murderous violence between
Hindus and Muslims, film stars were different.This was graphically illustrated one
night when Ashok Kumar, giving Manto a lift, took a short cut through a Mushm
neighbourhood of the city. Manto was petrified the Muslims would recognise
Ashok Kumar and kill him and he, a Mushm, would carry this guilt to his grave.
Crowds did indeed stop the car but, when they recognised Ashok Kumar, instead
of violence they offered brotherly greetings. So much so that they helpfully
pointed out that Kumar had hteraUy taken the wrong turning and indicated the
road he needed to get home. As they left the Muslim area, Ashok Kumar told
Manto, “You were worried for nothing. These people never harm artistes. They
are neither Hindus nor Muslims.”

Yet despite this it was a perceptive recognition of how Hindi films could rise
above such divisive barriers, barriers so deep that the sub-continent was about
to be partitioned along religious lines resulting in one of the biggest, and most
violent, migrations across the newly-created borders of the two countries.

And it was a Muslim director that Ashok Kumar had hired, Kamal Amrohi,
who was to produce Ashok Kumar’s Bombay Talkies biggest hit and a film
which is stiU seen as a landmark Hindi film, Mahal. The word means mansion
and Ashok Kumar had lived with the idea of the movie for a long time. He
had always been intrigued by ghost stories. Some time in the summer of 1948,
workers of Bombay Talkies told him that they had seen the ghost of Himansu
Rai. This set Ashok Kumar thinking and when later that summer he hired
Jeejeehoy House, a supposedly haunted house in a hiU-station near Bombay, he
had an experience which made him feel ghosts may be real. One night, as he
was about to go to sleep, a woman knocked at the door asking for help with her
car. But the car could not be fixed and she abandoned it outside the house. Later
that night, Ashok was woken up by shouting and went to find that the car was
still there, with a man dead inside it, his throat having been cut.

Next morning he summoned his servant but the servant assured him he must
have had a nightmare for there was no car outside. Ashok, not satisfied, went to
the pohce to report the incident only to be told by the inspector “This murder
took place fourteen years ago. A woman murdered someone and fled. Then she
died in a car accident.”

On his return to Bombay, Ashok Kumar narrated the story to Amrohi who
took the idea of the haunted house but added the necessary love ingredients.

132

Bollywood: A History

The Children of Rai

133

Amiya Chakraborty cast Dilip Kumar in the film, Jwar Bhata, which was shot
in May 1942, with Dilip just nineteen years and five months old. Ashok Kumar,
in his first movie, jumped before he was meant to; Dilip Kumar, in his first, ran
so fast when he was asked to rescue a heroine, that the director shouted ‘Cut!’
before he could reach the heroine. The camera could not follow him and, the
director told him, this is not a sports race but a movie. Like Ashok Kumar, but
perhaps even more so, he taught himself acting, and eventually became the
consummate movie actor of his time.

The film though proved unmemorable and Filmlndia described him as “an
anaemic addition to our film artistes. He needs a lot of vitamins and a prolonged
treatment of proteins before another picture can be risked with him.” But the film
has a footnote in Bollywood history. A bit part was played by an eighteen-year
old called Raj Kapoor,the son of Prithviraj,who had joined Amiya Chakraborty
as an assistant. This meant the two men,who would became the biggest stars
Bollywood has ever produced, were both in the same movie at the very start of
their parallel, and often contrasting, careers.

Jwar Bhata was not released until 1944 and, by 1946, Dilip Kumar had acted in
two more films. By now, however, Devika Rani was tiring of films. In 1946, she
married the Russian painter, Svetoslav Roerich and, in one of the great ironies
of the Bombay Talkies story, she sold the studio to Ashok Kumar, who bought it
in partnership with Savak Vacha, a colleague from Bombay Talkies with whom
he had just made a film for Filmistan called Shikari. They returned to find their
old company had debts of Rs 28 lakhs (Rs 2.8 million) and various frauds, some
of them committed by the directors themselves.

Even more worrying was the overall political situation. The war had ended but
India, which had seen little war fighting, was now in turmoil as the pent-up feeling
for independence erupted. Gandhi’s Quit India movement of 1942 had been put
down with savage force by the British, turning India into, as a British official put
it, “an occupied and hostile country.”The British and their allies had won the war,
but the stunning defeats suffered by the British, and other white empires in Asia
at the hands of the Japanese, had destroyed the mystique of the white races in
the east. No longer could a handffil of whites rule over milhons of browns. Even
those Indians who had been the most reliable collaborators of the British wanted
the British occupation to end. Immediately after the war the British Indian Navy,
based in Bombay, had revolted, and for a few days there was a near revolutionary
situation in the city. There were also growing Hindu-Muslim tensions.

Ashok Kumar and Vacha seemed impervious to all this and when they took
over Bombay Talkies, they employed mostly Muslims while dismissing many
Hindu employees who were redundant.

Saadat Hasan Manto, himself a Muslim working for them, feared a Hindu
backlash and warned them of the growing Hindu anger. Vacha received hate mail
from Hindus saying they would set fire to the studios, but he defiantly promised
to push anyone who dared into the burning studio. Ashok Kumar was just as
nonchalant about any religious strife and saw it as a passing madness that would
soon blow over. But as Manto says, “However, it never went away, this madness.
Instead, as time passed, it became more and more virulent.”

Ashok Kumar was right in the sense that for all the murderous violence between
Hindus and Mushms, film stars were different. This was graphically illustrated one
night when Ashok Kumar, giving Manto a lift, took a short cut through a Mushm
neighbourhood of the city. Manto was petrified the Muslims would recognise
Ashok Kumar and kill him and he, a Mushm, would carry this guilt to his grave.
Crowds did indeed stop the car but, when they recognised Ashok Kumar, instead
of violence they offered brotherly greetings. So much so that they helpfully
pointed out that Kumar had hterally taken the wrong turning and indicated the
road he needed to get home. As they left the Muslim area, Ashok Kumar told
Manto, “You were worried for nothing. These people never harm artistes. They
are neither Hindus nor Muslims.”

And it was a Muslim director that Ashok Kumar had hired, Kamal Amrohi,
who was to produce Ashok Kumar’s Bombay Talkies biggest hit and a film
which is stiU seen as a landmark Hindi film, Mahal. The word means mansion
and Ashok Kumar had lived with the idea of the movie for a long time. He
had always been intrigued by ghost stories. Some time in the summer of 1948,
workers of Bombay Talkies told him that they had seen the ghost of Himansu
Rai. This set Ashok Kumar thinking and when later that summer he hired
Jeejeehoy House, a supposedly haunted house in a hiU-station near Bombay, he
had an experience which made him feel ghosts may be real. One night, as he
was about to go to sleep, a woman knocked at the door asking for help with her
car. But the car could not be fixed and she abandoned it outside the house. Later
that night, Ashok was woken up by shouting and went to find that the car was
stiU there, with a man dead inside it, his throat having been cut.

On his return to Bombay, Ashok Kumar narrated the story to Amrohi who
took the idea of the haunted house but added the necessary love ingredients.

134

Bollywood: A Hisiory

essential in a Hindi film. The result was a taut, atmospheric film made haunting
by both the visuals and the music.The film was shot by a ghost, but a living ghost
in the shape ofWirsching, who had not set foot in Bombay Talkies for a decade
but, now, after the war, was a free man and had decided there was no point in
going back to Germany and would live his life out in India.

Ashok Kumar, himself, played the male lead opposite an actress who was barely
sixteen years old but already a very experienced one. Mahal was her seventeenth
film and that year, in 1949, she was to star in no less than nine films. She had
come to films as an eight-year-old in 1942, the same year Dilip Kumar made his
debut and, like Dilip Kumar, she had a Pathan father, Attaullah Khan who was,
if anything, even more fierce than Sarwar Khan, and certainly more determined
to make the most of the gifts of his beautiful daughter.

The Khans were poor, lived in a slum near Bombay Talkies’s studio and
Attaullah, having left his job at Imperial Tobacco over some tiff, had got his
eight-year-old, called Mumtaz Khan, an audition with Devika Rani. She gave
her a new name, Madhubala, a part in the 1942 film Basant, and by the time she
played in Mahal, she had acquired that touch-me-not beauty that Ashok Kumar
felt the main actress in Mahal ought to radiate. The film required her to sing a
song which was to became one of the most successful ever in the history of the

Hindi cinema ‘‘Ayega ayega, ayega, aanewla ayega ... a _ a" (he who is meant to

come will come).

Of course, by this time, unlike when Ashok Kumar had made his debut,
actors and actresses were not required to sing: they mimed; playback singing was
becoming the norm and the song was sung by Lata Mangeshkar who herself was
only twenty but with this song became the first great female singer of the Hindi
screen, matching, and then surpassing, the father of Hindi film singing, Saigal.

By this time, in the true traditions of Bombay Talkies, where the producer
always discovered the next big star, Ashok Kumar had also discovered a star, or
at least made him feel that he had a future as an actor. When, in 1948, Ashok
Kumar chanced on Dev Anand in the garden of Bombay Talkies, Ashok having
gone there to have a cigarette break while discussing who should play the lead
role in the next film his studio was planning, Dev Anand had every reason to
feel despondent.

Devdutt Pishorimal Anand, to give his full name, was then twenty-four years
old, yet another immigrant from the north like Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor,
to Bombay. Like Ashok Kumar, his father was a lawyer, and after graduating in
English Literature, Dev Anand had come to join his elder brother, Chetan, already
a prominent member of the Indian Peoples' Theatre Association (IPTA, a leftist
cultural organisation in the city). As he puts it, he wanted to be known to the
world and so packed his bags and came to the city, determined to tramp the streets
unril he made his presence felt. But despite Chetan being there, and also getting
to know K.A, Abbas, the film world was proving very difficult, and he worked

The Children of Rai

135

for some time in the Military Censor’s Office, reading letters written by soldiers
to their families. Eventually, he barged through yet another door, literally gate¬
crashing into the office ofBaburao Pai,the financial consultant of Prabhat Studios
who asked him to go to Pune for an audition. Much to Anand’s surprise, he also
gave him a first-class ticket on the Deccan Queen, which took him in three hours
in some comfort from Bombay to Pune.There, after an audition by director P. L.
Santoshi, he got a three-year contract on a monthly salary of RS350.

The film, Hum Ek Haiti, made in 1946, could not have been more idealistic.
The title meant ‘We are One’ and stood for Hindu-Muslim unity where Dev
Anand, a Hindu, played the Muslim in the film, while a Muslim actor played
the Hindu. However, the film flopped and the Prabhat experience was more
notable for the friendship he formed with the choreographer of Hum Ek Haiti,
Guru Dutt.

It came through their common washerman, the ubiquitous Indian dhobi, who
would often hand Dev’s shirts to Guru and vice versa. They made a promise to
each other that if, some day in the future, Guru Dutt were to turn film-maker,
he would take Dev as his hero, and if Dev were to produce a film, he would take
Guru Dutt as its director.

Then, a chance encounter on a train took him to Bombay Talkies and the
fateful meeting in the garden with Ashok Kumar. According to Ashok Kumars
biographer, their conversation went as follows, with Ashok starting off by asking:

“Why are you seated here? What do you want?”

“Sir, my name is Dev Anand. I am an actor and I want a job.”

“Have you acted before? Are you acting in any film right now?”

“I have acted in one film, which did not do well. I have no work now.

“Come with me.”

This conversation has echoes of the conversation Ashok had with Himansu
and that Devika had with Dilip Kumar, which may mean that, in recollection,
the careers of Hindi film personalities follow the same pattern as if they are
reading from the same script.

Like Himansu with Osten, Ashok Kumar had great difficulty convincing his
director. Shahid Latif, to take on Dev Anand. Shahid protested that, “He looks like
a chocolate bar,’’ the same criticism that had been made of Ashok Kumar when he
started. Latif had set his mind on having Ashok Kumar play the lead in his film and
did not see any reason why he should have to settle for this newcomer.

But, hke his mentor Himansu, Ashok Kumar proved stubborn, which was

I appropriate as the film was called Ziddi, Hindi for stubborn. Determined to

&■ save his energies for Mahal, the idea for which he already had, he had his way.

K Dev Anand suddenly found himself earning Rs2o,ooo and was launched into

Hb Stardom.

136

Bollywcod: A History

The film was to prove crucial to Dev Anand’s career for another reason. Apart
from being a commercial success, it introduced Dev Anand to Kishore Kumar,
Ashok’s younger brother, who was making his debut in the film as a playback
singer. It was the beginning of a lifetime of friendship, one that would shape the
course of both their individual and professional lives.

In the decades that followed, much of Dev Anand’s success as a film star owed
a great deal to the number of super-hit songs which Kishore sang for him in the
1950S, even as Dev’s screen presence helped establish Kishore ’s career as a singer.
They produced a wonderful chemistry, with Dev Anand insisting on Kishore
singing for him, and Kishore lending his voice as a playback singer to Dev in
the 1950S and 1960s.

So, in a short space of time, Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, and Dev Anand—all
born within a year of each other, along with Madhubala, all of whom were to
interact with each other on and off the screen, were launched as stars. Not long
after the 1950s had started, the Big Three of Bollywood, as Dilip Kumar, Raj
Kapoor and Dev Anand are called, had ushered in the new era of Bollywood, the
star system. Despite the fact that this was done against the background of post¬
war, independent India, when the world was changing, and the Indian world
was changing even faster, the star system that these three helped cement—Ashok
Kumar, in a sense having launched it—has proved more enduring than the
Hollywood studio system that Himansu and Devika had tried to foster in India.
The studio system had barely lasted two decades, whereas the star system has
been around for more than sixty years and shows no sign of being challenged.

In the history of Bollywood, much is made of the Big Three and when, some
years ago. Stardust published 100 Greatest Stars of all Time, the cover showed a
photograph of Raj Kapoor in the middle, flanked by Dev Anand and Dilip
Kumar. It was a rare photograph and a somewhat misleading one. The Big
Three never acted together, although Raj and Dilip did, and Dilip and Dev did,
but never Dev and Raj. Although Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor followed very
different paths, Dilip Kumar being widely seen as the great actor and Raj Kapoor
not paying much attention to acting, but wanting to be an impresario, they were
and remained close friends.Their families had known each other from Peshawar
and Dilip Kumar intervened to try and sort out Raj Kapoor’s marital problems.
When Dilip Kumar got married, Raj Kapoor crawled on his knees up two floors
to see Dilip’s elder sister.

Dev Anand was never part of this circle. Fairly early in his acting career he
and his brother Chetan started Navketan, a film production company for which
Dev acted and also later directed his own movies. Some of his best moments as
an actor came when being directed by his brother, Vijay.

In 1949, while makingjeel, Dev Anand fell hopelessly in love with his leading
lady, Suraiya. She was of the old school in that she could sing, as well as act.
But she was also a Mu.slim, and the woman she called her grandmother (she

Ihe Children of Rai

137

was, Manto says, really her mother) would not hear of her marrying a Hindu.
The pair went on acting together for another three years but in the end it was
clear there could be no happy ending to this story, as Suraiya’s mother refused
to consent to an inter-religious marriage. Suraiya, whose own career declined
as singing stars went out of fashion, lived out her life, unloved, and unnoticed,
meeting a sad, lonely, end.

In 1954, during the making of Taxi Driver, which his brother Chetan Anand
had directed, Dev Anand did find love when he married the film’s leading lady,
Kalpana Kartik, who had been discovered by Chetan Anand when she had
essayed a small role in Baazi.

In contrast to Dilip Kumar’s masochist lover boy, and Raj Kapoor’s Charlie
Chaplin style ‘tramp’, Dev Anand personified a sense of fun.Yet unlike these two
actors, he did not evolve. A certain Dev Anand style developed: a sing-song, rat-
a-tat-a-tat dialogue delivery, his puffed-up hair, exaggerated motions of the hand,
and the swaggering gait remained the same. Whatever the character or the plot,
the mannerisms rarely changed, which meant he was never rated too highly as a
performer. Not surprisingly, he did not have too many award-winning roles, Kala
Paani and Guide being exceptions. However, he knew the secret of Bollywood
success was entertainment value. This explained his popularity over the next
two decades as Dev either acted in or directed a series of musical blockbusters,
where the plots were often the same but the emphasis was on entertainment on
a scale not seen in Hindi cinema of that era, with some of the best Hindi film
music ever heard.

Ashok Kumar continued to make films at Bombay Talkies until 1953, searching
for new talent both on the screen, and as a director. The process of discovery
was often quite remarkable. In early 1951, Ashok Kumar agreed to work in a
film with an unknown young man. The man had been pestering him for some
time saying that he was a refugee and had a script which had a double role for
Kumar. In the end Ashok relented. On the first day of the shooting Ashok Kumar
was annoyed to find a crowd of people, some forty-odd journalists, gathered
around, but the new director promised to quieten them down. But soon after
the first shot was taken, he annoyed Ashok Kumar by suggesting he should do it
differently. For an unknown director to suggest this to the great Ashok Kumar
was unheard of. Kumar agreed, but said, “Develop both the takes tonight so that
I can see them at Sam tomorrow. If my shot seems right, then you will let me
work according to my reasoning and never bother me in future.”

At eight the next morning when both shots were projected, Kumar had to
accept that the new director was right. Until then Ashok had not known the
man’s full name, an indication of the informal way Bollywood works. Now he
asked him and the man replied, “Baldev Raj Chopra.”

Like providing Dev Anand with his first hit, Ashok Kumar had helped discover
a man who would soon establish himself as one of Bollywood’s great directors.

138

Bollywood; A History

he was generally known as B.R. Chopra, and a Chopra dynasty would develop
with his brother,Yash Chopra, also becoming a famous director.

The actress Nalini Jayant got her break with Kumar’s Bombay Talkies in
Tamasha which brought Pham Majumdar from New Theatres as director in
Bombay. Nitin Bose had already arrived to make Samar in 1949 and Mashal in
1950.

That was also the year when one of the most important Bengali directors
came to work for Bombay Talkies, making a seminal contribution to Bollywood.
Bombay Talkies were making a film called Maa which would provide a launch
pad for Bharat Bhusan, who had been struggling for some time. Savak Vacha
decided that the film needed a strong director and decided to ask Bimal Roy to
come from Calcutta to direct the movie.

The young director, accompanied by his family and a small tight group of
colleagues, left Calcutta’s Howrah station for the thirty-six hour train trip
that would take them west to Bombay’s Victoria station. His young daughter,
Yashodra Roy, who was then six, was on the train:

We travelled first class. In those days you had a bogie all to yourself; it was not a
corridor train. We would have travelled on the BNR Bombay Nagpur train. My
father brought a group of people with him; aU of us were in the same compartment.
The people who travelled with us included Asit Sen, my father’s assistant and a
great comedian, Hrishikesh Mukeijee, who was my father’s editor, Nabendu Ghosh,
a writer and Paul Mahendra, a Punjabi, who grew up in Calcutta. He had acted
for my father and was my father’s dialogue writer. Father would write in Bengali.
Bengali and English were the two languages he knew. He hardly spoke Hindi. Hindi
dialogue was difficult for him. Nazir Hussein was also in that compartment. He was
an actor who had acted in a film for my father. He also helped with the translation
from Bengali to Hindi. The house we were given in Bombay was Devika Rani’s
house, about ten houses away from the studio in Malad. Malad then was very rural: a
lot of trees; I would not say jungle, but it was very green, and not developed as now,
and with the roads not paved. It was a quaint little cottage, single storey, with a stone
exterior. We all camped together.There were three bedrooms and a drawing-room,
kitchen and a store-room. People slept in the drawing-room, five of them sleeping
on the floor. I remember, they would go to the studio and then come back and tell
my mother “Bowdi (a term of respect), we are hungry.” My mother was pregnant
with my younger sister. In those days Malad was so far away that when my mother
would go to the city, my father would tell my mother please come back before dark.
Savak Vacha had called him over to Bombay. He came to do Maa and the plan was
to go back to Calcutta.

Roy never did return. He made his home in Bombay and became one of
the great directors of Bollywood with his 1953 film. Do Bigha Zameen, a film

The Children of Ral

139

about rural poverty—the title means two acres of land—and the terrible burden
it imposes, arguably one of the most powerful social dramas Bollywood has
ever made. The movie, in many ways, represented all that was best in the New
Theatres Bengali school of film-making, for Roy was a quintessential Bengali
film-maker. His films were a blend of good cinema and commercialism, the
sort of films rare in Bollywood today. Like many Bengalis of his generation, he
saw himself as a progressive man of the left, probably a bit ahead of his time,
who would have been happiest making films in Bengali. But because of the
dominance of Hindi and Bombay he had to make films in Hindi, a language he
did not speak much.

Yashodra recalls:

He was a Bengali and proud of it. He hardly spoke Hindi. He never spoke Marathi
[the local language in Bombay]. He only knew English and Bengali. He wrote by
long-hand, paper and pen, using a Parker pen, writing in Bengali and that would
then be translated into Hindi. Baba’s work-clothes were white cotton shirt and
black trousers or dark brown trousers, but at night he used to wear a white lungi and
a white kurta. And on formal occasions, he would always wear dhoti, Punjabi and
chaddar: formal Bengali dress. He took us to Russia in 1959 and I still remember
in Moscow, in the cold, he was wearing dhoti, kurta and chaddar. Because of him
being a Bengali, there was a certain resentment my father faced on several occasions.
They resented the fact my father felt and acted like a Bengali.This came out when
my father won the awards for Do Bigha Zameen. Do Bigha Zameen’s original idea was
that of Salil Chowdhury (another Bengali who provided the music). My mother
was sitting at the Filmfare award ceremony next to some people who were Punjabis.
She told us this story. My father went the award that night dressed like a Bengal
babu wearing dhoti, Punjabi and chaddar. As he won the awards, he took away the

Best Picture and the Best Director award, she heard them say,‘Who is this dhoti-clad
fellow who has won the award?’ Do Bigha Zameen was the first Hindi film released
m Metro, an epoch-making occasion. Radio Ceylon interviewed everyone after

the film asking the crowds for their reaction.The man carrying out the interviews
outside Metro was Sunil Dutt; he was called Balraj then. My father was a man of
very few words. He never talked loudly. A chain-smoker, he smoked his last cigarette
one and half hours before his death. He always smoked Chesterfield. He did not
drink at all but he was addicted to tea. Later, when we lived in Godiwalla Bungalow,
a two-storey bungalow with a portico and a garden, I would witness script sessions.
Baba preferred them all to come over to the house. I remember seeing Guru Dutt,
uncle, S.D. Burman, Salil Chowdhury, Uttam Kumar, Dev Anand, and Suchitra Sen.
I remember when he made Madhumati, Dilip Kumar came over. They would sit
round outside and there would be heated discussions and arguments. Later, Gulzar
came over and my father, recognising he was a good poet, asked him to do the lyrics
for one of the Bandini songs.

140

Bollywood: A History

The Children of Rai

141

Gulzar, a Sikh, who at birth was named Sampooran Singh Kalra, had come
to Bombay just a year before Roy, part of the migration of partition from
north India to the city, but he could both speak and understand Bengali, and
it was a Bengali friend who introduced him to Roy. However, initially this led
to an interesting misunderstanding. Roy thought he was a Mushm and asked
his fellow-Bengali “Bhodrolok Baishnow kobita ki kore bujbe.” (How will the
gentleman understand Vaishnav poetry? Vaishnav being highly regarded Bengali
romantic poetry?) He was told the gentleman was a Sikh, who knew Bengali.
Like everyone else in Bollywood, Bimal Roy would became Bimalda for Gulzar,
the term of respect used in Bengal. As Gulzar himself became a successful
director he never stopped acknowledging the role that Roy played as mentor for
a whole generation of Bollywood film-makers.

If this shows the influence the Bengal school had on Bollywood then the
exodus from Calcutta to Bombay also created an extraordinary Bengali colony
in Bombay.

I had personal experience of this when, in the late 40s, the Bengali singer
Hemant Mukeijee, came to Bombay seeking work and lived in our home in
Bombay for some time. My father, a prominent businessman, introduced him to
a few people and Hemant Kumar, as he became known, went on to build a very
successful career as a playback singer. New Theatres had all but gone, but the
Bengali influence in Bombay was to remain strong for many decades.

In 1950, Ashok Kumar tired of always playing the goodie, decided he wanted
to play a bad character and got Gyan Mukeijee to direct Sangram, but this was to
prove too controversial for independent India. Ashok Kumar portrayed a rarity
in Hindi cinema then: a bad police officer, who murders a girl he loves, extracts
money from traders to gamble, shoots down a policeman who has come to arrest
him, and is finally shot by his own father.

The audiences loved it and it was well on its way to the much-coveted silver
jubilee—twenty-five weeks continuous showing in theatres—^but the idea of the
Indian cinematic public taking to a dishonest cop proved too much for the then
Bombay chief minister, Moraiji Desai. He summoned Ashok Kumar and told
him, “You have to do two things, Mr Ashok Kumar. First you have to withdraw
your film from the cinema houses and this you must do tomorrow. The second
is my request to you—play the role of the honest police inspector.” Sangram was
banned as it entered its sixteenth week.

What Ashok Kumar did not know was Bombay Talkies could have done with
honest employees. Although the debt of Rs 28 lakhs had been reduced, despite
the success of the films, there was stiU a three lakh debt. When the books were
examined, it was discovered that the accountant had been less than honest; he
had got Ashok Kumar s signature on blank papers and siphoned off m.oney, even
remitting money every month to someone’s mistress. In 1953,Ashok Kumar had
had enough and sold off Bombay Talkies, taking a huge loss. The new owners

could make nothing of the company; it was soon liquidated and today, heaps of
rubble and garbage, and a public toilet, conceal the dilapidated studio that once
showcased the best acting talent in the country.

The Bollywood studio era did not produce a Joseph Kennedy or a Howard
Hughes style figure and Benegal points to the difference m the style of the
producers between the two cinematic worlds:

A lot of studio owners of the pre-war time in Bombay were people who
had made a lot of money on the stock exchange: grain merchants, sattana, and
speculators on the stock exchange. In Hollywood, the producers became far more
important than the director.The director was a hired hand.The producer was a guy
who conceptualised something and got writers to write.

In Bombay, a man like Ardeshir Irani, who was known as Seth (the local word
for boss), combined both roles and Saadat Hassan Manton, who worked for
Irani’s Imperial as a munsi, meaning resident writer, recalls an occasion which
suggests the Seth was a sort of Bombay Joseph Kennedy figure, very keen to
increase his harem of women:

One day I went to Imperial Film Company to meet Seth Ardeshir Irani. As
I walked into his room, through the swing door, 1 found him pumping one of
Sheedan’s breasts (Sheedan was a rather plump actress), as if it was one of those old-
fashioned car horns. I turned right round without saying a word.

This is not quite the romantic interest Brian Shoesmith has m mind when he
says that “In many respects the studios represent a romantic moment in capital
formation in contemporary India.” It certainly did not succeed in its stated
purpose of bringing bank finance to the industry or even Government assistance.
In fact, the success of the movies made the Government tax it more. But the
studios, says Shoesmith, “also created the beginnings of a truly Indian film form:
the masala film, which combined drama, song, dance and action.

The film historian and writer, Iqbal Masud, has said the forties laid the
foundations of Indian cinema’s themes and ideas. Motifs of the cinema sown in
this era would replicate themselves in any number of variations in films from
that moment on. He sees the forties as a prelude to the golden fifties, whose
nakedness of themes remained unequalled until the eighties. In the process, the
studio era of the forties also helped define an Indian nation, a definition that at
the beginning of the decade seemed difficult, if not impossible.

Blondes and Brunettes; Bollywood's White Women

143

Blondes and Brunettes; Bollywood's

White Women

In a country which has an ambivalent relationship with women, worshipping
them as strong mother goddess figures but, also, in other respects, treating them
as possessions, one of the remarkable features of the Bollywood story is that from
the mid-30s until well into the late 40s, there was a galaxy of female stars who
dominated the film scene, overshadowed their male stars and defined the emerging
Bollywood movie. Rarely in the history of film anywhere in the world have the
female stars taken such a central role or come from such a varied background. What
was even more astonishing was that this happened just a decade after no director
could find women to play female roles and had to use men for this purpose.

We have already seen the impact of Devika Rani, but even as Bombay Talkies
was up and running, another female star had emerged who had an even more
exotic background and whose deeds, looked at now, sixty years after she wowed
the Indian cinema audience, have a ring of fantasy and wonder about them. In
strict cinematic terms, the movies this actress starred in were B movies; pretty
low-grade, cheap entertainment stunt films, but her rise and dominance during
the 30s tells us a great deal about Bollywood and the Indian cinema world.
‘Fearless Nadia’, the name by which she was known on the screen, was born
Mary Evans, to a Greek mother and a Scottish father. A large blonde, her movie
roles involved beating up Indian men and then bursting into loud laughter and
who, despite an illegitimate son, ended up marrying one of the owners of the
studio which made her into a star.

Her films were shunned by the Indian intellectuals but they appealed to the
uneducated urban masses increasingly drawn to the cities, factory workers, tonga
drivers, and they also reached beyond India to Africa and the Far East, where
her blonde looks and rebellious on-screen behaviour carried an enormous sex
appeal. The irony here was that the films were made for Wadia Brothers and the
older Wadia, the man who had started the studio and gave Evans her break in
films, was one of the great intellectuals of the Indian cinema and played a leading
part for many years in the politics of the Indian film industry.

Jamshed Bomanji Wadia could not have been more educated, with an MA
in English literature and a law degree, or better connected to the Parsi upper
crust of Bombay. The name Wadia meant master builder and it was a title given
to an ancestor, Lovji Nusserwanji when, in 1735, as foreman at the East India
Company’s shipyards, he was asked to build ships in Bombay and modernise
the shipyards. Lovji’s success led to a migration of Parsis from Surat, and other
west Indian towns, to Bombay, leading to the growth of the city and of Parsi
dominance. J.B.H, as he was known, and his younger brother, Homi Wadia,
ventured into films with Homi directing the 1931 silent movie Diler Daku. They
had originally called themselves Wadia Brothers Productions but the success of
the silent Toofan Mail (Fast Train) in 1933, made then launch Wadia Movietone.
They now had backing from theTatas, a financial partner in M.B. Billimoria, and
bought the former family seat, Lovji Castle, in Bombay’s Parel district for this
purpose. Keen to preserve their family history, the studio emblem was a sailing
ship. There was no hint in their early films that they would bring a Nadia-like
creature to the screen. Their first sound film, Lal-e-Yaman, made in 1933 was a
story of romance and princely intrigue, the central ingredient being Persian-
Arabian fantasy, scripted by Joseph David, who had written Alam Ara and long
been part of Parsi Theatre. But the Wadias were toying with the idea of stunt
movies and this is where Mary Evans, then a twenty-five year old, fitted in very
well. She would emerge as a sort of Indian Robin Hood, albeit female, as if all
her life had been destined for this moment.

Before that, Mary Evans’s life had been like that of many a young white
woman in India of no great means, who was hoping to exploit as best as she
could the fact that the British ruled the country. Born in Perth in 1909, she had
arrived in India in 1911, when her father’s army unit was posted to the country.
Her father died in the trenches of France in 1915 and Margaret, her mother, a
one-time belly dancer, settled in Bombay where Mary, a Catholic, went to a
convent school.

Like all English children in India, she was brought up totally ignorant of
Indian history or culture, let alone what Gandhi and his followers were getting
up to, sometimes literally, outside the walls of the convent. But at the convent,
the nuns discovered she had a nice voice and gave her some solo parts in the
church choir. However, Mary’s ambitions were aroused by films; she watched
them avidly, being allowed by her mother to go and see this cheap form of
entertainment.

In 1922, Mary and her mother left Bombay for Peshawar making, in effect, the
journey in reverse that not long afterwards many of the stars of the Indian screen, like
Prithviraj and Dilip Kumar, would make. Mary was enthralled by her journey on the
Frontier Mail to Peshawar and, throughout the trip, stayed glued to the window of
her carriage as the train sped across western India to the northern borders of British
India. Margaret and Mary arrived at what was described as an ‘uncle’s’ farm an hour

144

Bollywaad; A Hisiury

Blendes and Brunettes: Bcilyweed's White Women

145

away from Peshawar, complete with horses, dogs, chickens and ducks. Nothing could
be more different from Bombay: neither cinemas nor theatres, nor other places
where a teenager, white and female, could linger carefree.

Mary, of course, was subject to the code the British had imposed on themselves
in India: no social mixing with the Indians. So while Peshawar was not a big
place, and Hindus and Muslims mixed with each other, the Europeans remained
a separate caste. This meant that Mary Evans missed getting to know the families
of Sarwar Khan, father of the film star who assumed the name Dilip Kumar, or
the family of Bashesharnath Kapoor, whose son was Prithiviraj.The Khans and
the Kapoors knew each other weU and were good friends.

The odd English man and woman did have contacts with Indians and even
encouraged them. Norah Richards, wife of the Professor of King Edward
College in Peshawar, played a crucial role in developing Prithviraj’s interest in
the theatre and, as Zora Segal has written, “Norah nourished his dream about a
theatre of his own. She initiated him in the world ofWestern plays.” But this was
a world removed from Mary.

She continued to sing and learnt to ride, being presented on her fifteenth
birthday with a chestnut-brown male pony called Tommy. Then something
mysterious happened. Mary had a love affair with a British officer but whether
this led to something or not is not clear. What is clear is that is on 26 November,
1926, Robert Jones was born, known from then on as Bobby. He would later
become a hockey player in India and go to live in Australia, where he retired.
Mary Evans’s biographer, Dorothee Wenner, says that it remains unclear who
Bobby really was. Sometimes he was called Mary’s brother, at other times her
cousin, while in all probability Bobby was Mary’s son. It was not until 1972
that Mary and her husband, Homi Wadia, officially adopted Bobby as their
‘son’—and nothing further was stated. Homi Wadia would later tell a story that
suggested that the child was not that of Mary Evans but had been adopted by
Mary and Margaret during a visit to England. Mary had gone home hoping to
get to drama school but was told that there were any number of pretty English
girls bursting to get into the cinema and she would be better off trying her luck
in India. During the visit they met an acquaintance of Margaret, who was even
poorer than the Evans, and Margaret took pity and decided to adopt one of
the young boys and bring him back to India. Wenner cannot say how true this
version is. What is true is that from 1926, Margaret, Mary and Bobby formed a
very tightly-knit family.

Clearly, Mary had to earn money; Peshawar hardly provided many opportunities,
and in May 1927 she was back in Bombay, once again journeying on the Frontier
Mail. A year later, Pnthviraj would take the same train and arrive at the same
station in Bombay and his first words to the tonga driver were “Take me to the
sea!”—he had not seen the sea before. Mary knew aU about the sea and went to
the accommodation arranged for her by friends.

In Bombay she worked in the cosmetics department of the Army and Navy
Stores, the former Watsons Hotel, where India’s first cinema show had been held.
The belief among the poorer whites and Anglo-Indians in Bombay was that
work in this, then the most prestigious department store of town, could result in
a meeting with a British officer, who might come shopping and, possibly, lead
to marriage. It had happened to an Anglo-Indian friend of Mary’s. But she was
not much of a cosmetics counter girl and soon became a secretary in a law firm
before, through an advert in The Times of India, she met the Russian ballerina,
Madame Astrova. Madame Astrova, like many Russians of her class, had fled her
country after the revolution, and was looking for new students for her dance
school. Mary joined her and soon acquired a new name when, after a visit to an
Armenian tarot card reader, she was told she would be very successful but would
have unhappiness in her private life.Take on a stage name, advised the Armenian,
and after much looking at the cards Mary looked for a name beginning with ‘N’
with five letters and chose Nadia.

Madame Astrova’s troupe toured the country, performing in front of diverse
audiences from soldiers at military bases, to open-air shows in front of villages,
in small towns, and in Maharajah’s palaces. The audiences were generally men
and soon Nadia had graduated from the chorus to her own solo number, a gypsy
dance demonstrating her mastery of the cartwheel and the splits. She was now
the star of the show.

But feeling underpaid, Nadia had a fight with Madame Astrova while the
troupe was in New Delhi and she left the show. There was a brief sojourn with
the Zarko Circus, performing as part of their Asian tour, but this did not work
and Nadia tried her hand with the management of the Globe Film Theatre, a
new cinema chain. Sound had not yet arrived so every movie hall showing a
\f silent movie had an orchestra. Nadia wanted to perform little vaudeville sketches

on the stage, before the main film, to draw a larger crowd. Soon she joined a
Russian-German dance troupe specialising in gypsy dance which performed
in cinemas and Nadia learnt a new trick, offering off-screen noises and songs
during the silent movies. As the heroine began to die, Nadia was supposed to
sing a sad song. She often got her timing wrong with the result that even as she
finished singing the heroine was stiU alive, causing much mirth in the audience.
It suggested she had an ability to provoke laughter, even if unwittingly, and this
would prove useful.

During her travels, Nadia had got friendly with Eruch Kanga, the manager
of Regal Theatres in Lahore, who had told the Wadias in glowing terms about
her. Soon she was on her way to Parel for an interview. Nadia would later recall
the first meeting, “When the day came I took the train from Wellington Mews
in Colaba, not far from my home, and rode out to Parel where the studio was
located right next to the house of the Governor of Bombay. In those days, the
areas were on the edge of town, and behind the studio were lots of paddy fields.

146

Bollywood: A History

and you could look over to Antop Hill and out to Borivili—no skyscrapers
blocking the view. I remember I had treated myself to a sweet, sky-blue dress for
the interview, along with a pretty little hat, complete with sunflowers. When I
alighted from the tram, Mr. Kanga was there, waiting for me in his red Chrysler,
and we drove through the wrought-iron studio gates together. I had rather
anticipated some sort of tin shed structures, as I had seen in Imperial Studios,
where I had sometimes watched filming in the silent-movie days. But, suddenly,
we were driving up to a grand villa! The whole atmosphere led me to prepare
myself for a meeting with some respectable elderly gentlemen. As we entered
the lobby, all I could see were some actors hanging around, dressed as monkeys.
It was quite funny.”

She found J.B.H.Wadia chain-smoking behind his desk. His first look at her
horrified him. Kanga had not told him how white Nadia was or how large. JBH
would later admit that he thought Kanga was playing a trick on him. Nadia,
never lacking confidence, told him she was famous in the world of cinema. JBH
replied he had never heard of her. “To which I said that until now I hadn’t heard
of him either!” Both laughed. Nadia then advertised her qualities: a horse-rider,
a dancer, very athletic, she could even do the splits.

But while she could speak Greek—the influence of her mother, who spoke
accented English—she did not know any of the Indian languages—no Hindi,
Urdu, Marathi or Gujarati. Nevertheless JBH was impressed but wanted Homi’s
advice. Nadia just laughed when she saw Homi and, turning to JBH, asked,
“What? This man decides such matters?”

There is conflicting evidence as to how much Nadia was paid; it was either
sixty rupees a week or RS150 a month. Homi thought JBH was mad but went
along with him. Nadia had to learn a Hindi scene by heart. Since she could not
read Hindi it was written for her in the Roman script and she was asked to
return in a week, after which Homi would give her a screen test.

The result was predictable. Nadia could not master the new language,
mispronouncing words in the way that advertised her as an alien. She spoke
Hindi like almost any other Briton trying out the language for the first time, and
this sounded very comical to the Indians. But the Wadias soon saw she could be
an ideal stunt woman. She had tiny, three minute roles in Desk Deepak (Light of
the Homeland), which JBH directed. A more substantial part followed in Noor-e-
Yaman (Light ofYeman), where she sang and danced, and also shed a few tears.

Nadia, of course, was an odd person at the studio. Most of the employees
spoke Gujarati, which was also the mother tongue of the Wadias, so Nadia could
not converse with them. She learnt her Hindi from texts that were transcribed
into Latin letters and her pronunciation had to be endlessly corrected. Wenner
says Nadia wasn’t really taken seriously and, in any case, in the hierarchy of those
days, actors were by no means at the top of the business and would never have
thought of demanding special treatment.

Blondes and Brunettes: Bollywood’s White Women

147

The Wadias, like Rai, ran their studio as a patriarchal family unit where every
one of the 600 people on the payroll was meant to be equal. Homi Wadia would
later recall how at ten every morning, just like in a school, a bell would ring
and there would be a roll call. In general, a kind of egalitarianism prevailed and
the actor not required in a shoot might bring food for everyone else or, the
actress, temporarily unemployed, instead of retreating to her secluded room,
would help hang curtains for the backdrop, or even repair costumes. In the style
of good paternalistic employers, the Wadias provided free medical care for their
employees. Such paternalism could lead to dependency and in August 1938,
when Imperial Studios closed down, some thirty employees, former criminal
offenders, who hadn’t left the grounds for over seven years ‘out of fear of the
law’, just did not know what to do. So they camped outside the shut gates of
the studio for days, hoping it would open, and they would not have to face the
outside world again.The Wadias, however, by all accounts created a happy family,
even if Nadia by her colour and her inability to speak the local language, was a
bit apart.

Homi Wadia would later say, “Miss Nadia was a white lady, after all, and
everyone in the studio felt out of their element when asked to work with her
as a stunt actress. Back then she was still very reserved, very quiet, and a far cry
fix)m messing around like a buddy with those of us who had been in the team
longer.”

But this was about to change when the Wadias decided to make Hunterwali.
It came about partly through accident. The Wadias were busy in another
extravagant melodrama when, in December 1934, the leading lady fell ill and
production had to be stopped. The Wadias already had the screenplay for a stunt
film with Nadia ready and JBH, worried about the waste of studio time, was
keen to get this much smaller, cheaper production going. Homi required a lot of
convincing as he was not sure the blonde lead was capable.

The Wadias had tried to make Nadia Indian. Struggling to fit a large blonde
woman into an Indian film, JBH suggested to Nadia that she take the screen
name of‘Nanda Devi’ and wear a black wig with long pigtails. Nadia reacted
with fury. Look here, Mr. Wadia, I am willing to try anything once, but this is
ridiculous. I am a white woman and I will look foolish with long black hair. And
my name is very well-known all over India as Nadia. I refuse to change my name.
It has been chosen by an Armenian fortune-teller and it has brought me good
luck. And besides, I am not Devi! Nadia even rhymes with Wadia!”

JBH was an admirer of Hollywood and Douglas Fairbanks, in particular. JBH
was his host when he visited Bombay, secured the Indian rights to his Mark of
Zorro, and now he had a script which included elements of this film and The
Perils of Pauline. The stunt movie story transplanted Douglas Fairbanks’ version
to a mythical Indian kingdom, except that the palace looked neither opulent nor
very regal. The ace in the Wadia pack was Nadia.

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Bollywood: A History

Blondes and Brunettes: Bollywood's White Women

149

Nadia was to be trained by Meherjibhai Tarapore in Hindi; the script required
her to appear in some palace scenes in a sari and to speak Hindi, but the centre¬
piece of the movie was the stunts and fighting scenes, including a fight with
some bodyguards on a rooftop and then a leap from the roof. The feeling at
Wadia Movietone was that Nadia was being asked to do things that would test
their experienced stuntmen, Boman Shroff and Ustad Haqu, let alone test this
rather large hlonde.

Homi decided to start shooting with the scene where Nadia was required
to jump from the roof. As other employees gathered in fear and trepidation to
see this shoot, Nadia coolly asked Homi, “I’ve heard I am to jump from a roof?
Which one is it then?” When Homi pointed it out, Nadia said, “Okay.”

Not long before, an experienced Wadia stuntman had almost drowned, having
miscalculated a jump from a freight ship. In general, scrapes, dislocated joints, and
often more severe injuries, were part of the daily fare. As the mahurat ceremony
was performed Nadia was the only one unconcerned; everyone else was worried,
particularly the other stunt people, who were dressed in police uniforms. But
the shooting seemed to go perfectly, scene after scene was shot showing Nadia
masked and fighting and Nadia dispatching the bandits from the roof until it
came for her to jump. Homi was nervous and had asked Mr. Dhunbhoora to he
on hand. He was regarded as an experienced ‘hone-setter.’ Nadia was required
to leap on to a thin mattress.The jump seemed fine, the cameraman said ‘okay’,
Homi shouted ‘Cut!’ but Nadia was motionless. Everyone ran to her, fearing
the worst. Then Nadia opened her eyes and let out a loud laugh. Fear turned
to wonder and everyone broke into applause. At the end of the day’s shooting,
Homi held a meeting in his office for the entire staff and christened Nadia
‘Fearless Nadia’, the name by which she was to be known for the rest of her film
career; it was also a name that was used to publicise this movie, and the others
that Nadia made.

As the filming progressed, Homi grew more confident about Nadia and asked
her to be more daring. One day, Nadia was asked to lift up one of her stuntmen
and carry him around; this would soon became a standard routine in the Fearless
Nadia films.

There was a hiccough when Nadia got injured and needed rest and her mother
warned her about her stunts but Nadia brushed aside her concerns. Soon Nadia’s
stunt abilities so enthused the Wadias they invested more money, introducing
songs and scenes despite the fact that Billimoria, their business partner, was not
convinced. He warned, “An Indian woman doing all that fighting—the public
may not like it; we must sell the picture.” His worries seemed well-founded when
no cinema wanted to show Hunterwali; the idea of Indian men being beaten by
a blonde woman at a time when India was fighting for her freedom from rule
by white men, seemed far removed from the cinema they had got used to. The
film had taken six months to make, a long time by the standards of the time,

film had taken six months to make, a long time by the standards of the time.

cost more than Rs8o,ooo and now faced the nightmarish prospect that it might
never be seen by anybody. In the end, the Wadias decided to screen Hunterwali
themselves. The Super Cinema on Grant Road, an area of Bombay where many
Parsis lived, which was famous for Parsi food, and which is also not far from the
city’s red light district, was chosen.

In order to make sure Nadia did not come over as an alien, the film had a
written title: “Brave Indian girl who sacrificed royal luxuries in the cause of her
people and country.”The advertisements in the film magazines showed a drawing
of Nadia, sitting on a rearing horse, whip in hand. Beneath it, the slogan, “A
spectacular thriUer, the first of its kind in India.”

The movie premiered in June 1935, the start of the monsoon season in
Bombay, and appropriately heavy rain pelted down that evening as the cinema-
goers hurried into the Super Cinema.

The Wadias waited apprehensively.

Nadia was there with Margaret and Bobby. “I was so nervous that my whole
body was trembling. I spent the whole time looking around, trying to gauge
the reactions on the faces of the audience. Mummy had to hold my left hand,
Bobby the right. My first appearance was in the second reel, fifteen minutes into
the film, and when my voice was heard, I heard the public gasping for breath.
They were stunned by the performance. In the third reel, I swear I’ll avenge my
father’s abduction and free him from the clutches of the evil minister. Then I
crack the whip and say: ‘From this day forth, call me Hunterwali! At this point,
the audience went wild. They just couldn’t stop whistling and applauding.”

That night the cinema had been sold out. Now the Wadias knew it would be
sold out for many more days and weeks. The objective was the coveted Silver
Jubilee, twenty-five weeks of continuous showing; this was reached and it proved
one of the big box office hits of the decade. Soon, other Indians were making the
most of her success and unofficial Nadia whips, belts, matchboxes and playing cards
were seUing on the streets and her famous yeU ‘hey-y-y’ became a catch phrase.

Nadia’s monthly wage was increased and the Wadias began to build a new
ensemble around their star, searching for bodybuilders, with acting talent, and trained
animal stars. For subsequent movies, the Wadias added a new, even more appealing,
touch. This showed Nadia carrying a man on her shoulders, riding the length of a
train, and over the next five years, until 1940, Homi Wadia directed six Nadia films—
Hunterwali, Pahadi Kanya, Miss Fronier Mail, Lutaru Lalna, Punjab Mail and Diamond
Queen. The films, almost a movie a year, featured the great trains of the Raj: Aliss
Frontier Mail in 1936 was followed three years later by Punjab Mail in 1939. Indian
audiences loved them, and loved her aU the more when they learnt that she did not
use a double, the first Indian actress not to do so, but did the stunts herself.

Nadia’s male counterpart was the Parsi actor, John Cawas, who had won the
1930 All India Body Building Contest and had once carried a Chevrolet car with
four passengers on his bare back. He was billed as India’s Tarzan.

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I5D

Bollywood: A History

In 1941, came Bomhaiwali (Woman from Bombay), and in \g^ 2 ,Jungle Princess,
for which a forty-foot jungle model, to show a storm in the jungle, was built
and there were also high-speed car chases. In 1942, theie was Hunterwali ki Bell
(Daughter of Hunterwali), re-introducing the old, whip-cracking Nadia. The
success of this movie, after a few bleak ones, was crucial and convinced Homi
that cheap stunt movies, with Nadia, was the answer.

But, by this time, the two brothers were increasingly drifting apart. JBH had
always been much more political; he had left the Congress to join the Radical
Democratic Party founded by M.N. Roy, who had been a founder of the Indian
Communist Party, and even advised the Chinese Communist Party in the 1920s,
before renouncing Marxism. In essence JBH wanted to make socially more
relevant films, while Homi wanted to stick to stunt movies. But these were
not the only differences between the brothers. During the war, with an acute
shortage of raw stock, they set up Basant Pictures to try and get more raw film
and they did make some movies together. But in 1943, they finally split up and
JBH eventually sold Wadia Movietone toV. Shantaram, while Homi continued
to make stunt movies with Nadia until her retirement in 1956.

But how did the Wadias make a success of movies that were anti-British
allegories, but featured a blonde woman who claimed British descent? Rosie
Thomas, who interviewed Nadia for an essay about her says that, while from
the start Nadia’s ethnicity was an issue for the Wadias, and Indianising her
was a project, one of the tricks the Wadias used was to refer to her as the
‘Bomhaiwali' (The Woman from Bombay), which put great emphasis on the city’s
cosmopolitan sophistication and modernity, something the citizens of the city
were, and still are, very proud of.

Thomas writes:

Her western look was undeniably part of her exotic appeal and the Wadias were
involved in a careful calculation. Billing her as India’s Pearl White she could attract
all the glamour of the Pearl White brand and exoticism of‘white men’ (memsahib,
as the white woman is known in India), whilst simultaneously constructing an all-
Indian Nadia. Played cleverly, they could have it both ways, conflating two traditions:
the Hollywood stunt queen (and by implication, the whole Hollywood stunt
genre—her persona referred as much to Fairbanks as to White), and the legendary
Indian warrior woman. Through these, a cosmopolitan modern femininity could
be forged.

So successfully did the Wadias package Nadia, always fighting for the good
cause, always fighting for justice, that for the Indian audiences, and in particular
those that flocked to her movies, her whiteness did not matter. The Wadias were
also shrewd enough to recognise that while the Indians were in the middle of
their epic fight against the British, their nationalism was not xenophobic, so there

Blondes and Brunettes: Bollywood's White Women

151

was no great anti-white feeling, just a desire to be free and govern themselves.
Also, Indian leaders have often recruited white women to their cause, including
Gandhi with Mirabhen, the daughter of a British admiral. If a white woman was
ready to throw in her lot with India, as Nadia clearly was, she was acceptable. Her
blondeness did not matter. She, like Robin Hood, avenged the poor, laughingly
beat up her enemies, rode like the devil, and swung on chandeliers through the
living-rooms of the rich, sporting tight-fitting shorts.

The Indian writer, Girish Karnad, who grew up in the 1940s, has testified to
the hold Nadia had on audiences, particularly young men:

The single most memorable sound of my childhood is the clarion call of‘Hey-y-
y’ as Fearless Nadia, regal upon her horse, her hand raised defiantly in the air, rode
down upon the bad guys.To us school kids of the mid-forties, Nadia meant courage,
strength, idealism.

Wenner quotes another fan saying:

We were forced to keep ourselves under control everywhere: at work, in the
family, faced with our superiors, on the street; there was nowhere where we could
give full rein to our emotions—apart from the cinema. There, we could shout and
laugh and cry without being invasive or embarrassing. Everyone did it. And this is
the reason why the Nadia films were so popular, because no other film managed
to draw us in as much. Come the end of the film, we were completely drained and
exhausted but, at the same time, there was a magnificent relief, a catharsis.

Off the screen, Nadia and Homi had become lovers, probably after her third
or fourth film, which itself would have made a great script for a movie. For
many years this love was kept hidden and, even when revealed, spun to make
the story sound better to Indian ears. A marriage between an Indian and a Brit,
even one like Nadia, who would be considered very low class by the ruling Brits,
was difficult. For a start, Homi’s Parsi family would not have cared for it. Homi,
a very shy, private, man who preferred to stay in the shadow of his brother, was
also something of a Mummy’s boy and it was Nadia who took the initiative in
their affair although, when it finally emerged, having long been Bombay gossip,
Indian film magazines were given an official version which was at odds with the
truth. Nadia described it as a love-at-first-sight relationship, claiming Homi had
fallen in love with her when he looked at her through the lens of the camera
for the first time. She had flashed just the briefest of smiles and it had happened.
However it happened, the two of them had found one another by the end of
the 1930S. Homi knew that marriage to her would not make Nadia a Parsi, nor
would their children be Parsis, as the only way you can be a Parsi is by being
born to parents both of whom are Parsis. In the end, a beach house near Juhu,

162

Bollywood; A History

one of Bombay’s great beaches, provided a home for the lovers. “There,” says
Wenner, “beneath the palm trees, and looking out to the sea, they exchanged
garlands of flowers and, in effect, became man and wife, although a formal
ceremony took years.”

It also took years for Nadia to get much recognition from the historians of the
cinema. In her film heyday, the name Fearless Nadia on billboards had drawn crowds
to the cinema in Beirut, Athens, Nairobi and Cape Town. But this star of Wadia
Movietone did not get much space in Indian newspapers and was almost completely
forgotten when, sixty yean later, at the Berlin Film Festival of 1993, a documentary
was screened ‘Fearless Nadia—Vie Hunterwali Story’. ARer the screening, it transpired
that the director was the great-nephew of Fearless Nadia, Riyad Wadia, who had
dug deep into the family archive to create a wonderful memorial to his great-aunt.
In the audience wa.s German film-maker Dorothee Wenner who, like the rest of
the audience, was both dumbfounded and enthused to discover a radical feminist
actress in Indian cinema history and wondered how a blonde with European feamres
succeeded in becoming a celebrated stunt queen in popular Indian cinema.

A biography of Nadia in German followed; this was later translated into
English and gave impetus to the idea that Nadia was a radical feminist long
before the word had been invented. By this time there were others writing
about Nadia, including Rosie Thomas, whose essay on her was published in a
Bollywood anthology in 2003. Nadia was now seen as something of a feminist
icon. Those who hold to this view make much of her speech in Diamond Queen
in the very first scene when, after beating a man who complains she has insulted
his manhood, she says, “Hey, mister, don’t think today’s women are so weak
they 11 submit to the brutality of men. If India is to be free, women must be given
their freedom.. .if you try and stop them, you’ll face the consequences”.

When I met Wenner in Berlin she made the point that Nadia’s impact was,
probably, more on the men than on the women:

Her impact was more on the male audience. Remember, at that time few women
were allowed to see the Nadia films. Maybe attitudes changed; but, for women, I am
not so sure. She had a major impact on the self-esteem of men, in a weird way. She
was opposite (in the British Colonial way) to the Indian way (which is supposed to
be weak, feminine). Here she was powerful, would laugh at her enemies, and also
had a strong physique. So this was an interesting model of esteem for the male. She
was doing things that the Indian male could not normally do, politically. So, through
Nadia, they were living vicariously. JBH was very clear about that. He didn't market
the film as educational, but marketed it in a way so that it escaped the censors.
JBH was a lawyer, knew what he was doing.. .put a lot of powerful messages in the
movie to educate the villagers. For example, a dog barking, symbolised a British
soldier. The British did not notice because it was a way of daily life. The Indians
understood what he was saying.

Blondes and Brunettes; Bollywood's White Women

153

If Nadia was the most remarkable female star of this period, she was by no
means the only white woman actress in Bollywood. There were many such
actresses to be seen, particularly in the studios of Bombay. In Ardeshir Irani’s
studio, where Prithviraj started, there was Ermeline, a Jewish actress, who was
a big enough star to select her own leading man. On Prithviraj’s third day, as
she inspected the line of extras where Prithviraj was standing, she was much
impressed by his good looks and selected him as the male lead opposite her in
Cinema Girl, providing Prithviraj with his start in movies.

There were others, such as the actress Camilla, initially a rival of Nadia, and
who became a friend, and whose background was Russian, Jewish, Armenian,
and Anglo-Indian. Camilla, and her sister, Ramilla, were known for their
beautiful complexion as the two peaches. Unlike Nadia, they kept away from
stunt movies and made more social movies. But, while this was more acceptable
to the Indian upper classes, it was the Nadia style stunt movies that made more
money, always an important factor in money-conscious India.

A decade after Nadia, another star of exotic background emerged with a
similar sounding name, Nadira. As we have seen in the early years of films,
actresses like Sulochana, the Anglo-Indian Ruby Meyers in real life, were paid
more than any other male actor, let alone a female one. And this desire to have
white-skinned female stars would, a decade later, provide an incredible debut
for nineteen-year old Farah Ezekiel, a Jew of Iraqi origin whose grandparents
had migrated to Calcutta. As Ezekiel would later tell the story, it came about
because her rich grandmother fell in love with a baker and the couple
eloped to Calcutta to escape the wrath of the grandmother’s rich family who
disapproved of her choice of husband. Florence’s arrival in Bombay was in
the tradition of many Iraqi-Jews who had migrated to Bombay and become
prominent in business there. The most famous of them were the Sassoons,
who had become one of the most prominent businessmen of Bombay and
whose present-day memorial is the Sassoon Docks in the city. David Sassoon
had come rather quietly to the city in 1833, but Ezekiel arrived with a bang in
Bollywood from Calcutta in 1952. Not yet twenty, and taking the screen name
Nadira, she made a spectacular debut as heroine in Mehboob Khan’s Aan.
Aan did not quite fulfil Khan’s dreams and after that Nadira did not often play
heroines; sometimes, as in Shree 420, a path-breaking movie of the 1950s, she
played the bad woman but, even then, she mimed a song which became very
famous. Her Shree 420 song, “Mud mud ke na dekh mud mud fee...” remains a classic.
She eventually appeared in sixty films but her bad woman role in Shree 420 did
typecast her and after that she was always the other woman and never played the
heroine again.

Later still, in the 70s, she became what Bollywood calls a character actor,
meaning mother, aunt, or older woman, and did it so well that m the 1975 Julie,
playing the leading lady’s Anglo-Indian mother, she won the award for “Best

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Supporting Actress.” The film was about love between a Hindu boy and an
Anglo-Indian girl and the cultural differences between the two communities,
which were then still quite a controversial subject for a film-maker to tackle.
Nadira must have felt this was somewhat ironic for she never found true love
and led a lonely life; her two brothers had migrated to the United States and
Israel respectively, and she lived alone in her south Bombay flat, where the
mahogany door advertised both her screen name and her real name, and where
her constant companion was her maid, Shobha. Every year on December 5, her
birthday, she celebrated by serving biryani and cakes to the children from the
neighbourhood.

Unlike Nadia, Nadira life’s became a sort of caricature of her screen roles
and in Bollywood she became famous as one of the few film personalities who
had an excellent library, books ranging through the works of Shakespeare, Adolf
Hitler, Vivekananda, World War II, Judaism, and Philosophy, which friends and
neighbours used to borrow from time to time.

Nadira died in 2006, at the age of seventy-four, having suffered many illnesses,
such as a liver disorder, due to her heavy drinking. In her last interview, shortly
before her death, she came over as a reclusive lady with many secrets whom
life had passed by. “I don’t know if I reaUy miss having a family because I have
never really known family life. I have been alone for too long to miss being with
someone.”

That could hardly be said of the female Bollywood star of the 40s, who has
left the most haunting legacy and provoked more “ifs” than any other actor or
actress.This was Nur Jehan (the name has also been spelt Noor Jahan). Her career
in BoUywood lasted just five years. She left India at the age of twenty-one, never
to return except as a visitor shortly before her death. But, by this time, she had
made so many films (sixty-nine), and sung so many songs (127), that she was a
colossus of the screen, despite her youth and her career, and ignited a debate
that lingers on to this day: had she stayed, could she have changed BoUywood?
Nur Jehan could both sing and act, and, while she was, incomparably, the
greater singer, so long as she was in India, Bollywood was no different from
Hollywood; not all actors or actresses sang but, if a song was required, then
they had to. The big if—had she stayed—would Bollywood have continued
like Hollywood—and other cinemas-—in having actors and actresses who were
required to both act and sing, if necessary? The Bollywood divorce that followed
Nur Jehan’s departure was so total that this break between acting and singing
is even greater than Kipling’s divide between east and west and, today, nearly
sixty years later, there is no question of the twain ever meeting. The debate,
like all such “ifs”, can never be resolved, but the fact that it is debated at all
shows Nur Jehan’s influence, and her story is like one of those tales w’hich, had
it been made into a BoUywood movie, would have been rejected as just too
fantastic.

Born in Kasur on Saturday, 21 September 1926, to Madad Ali and Fateh
Bibi, she was named Allah Wasai, the youngest in a family of thirteen. Of her
seven brothers, three ended up in mental institutions. From a very early age, it
was clear Nur Jehan had to look after the financial needs of her large family
which included many who were not her immediate family. Many years later,
when she was already quite old, she lamented,“People ask me why I don’t stop
working. Well, how can I? If I don’t work, who is going to take care of all these
people?” She appears to have made her first film when she was four although,
like many things in her life, we cannot be certain. She herself liked to make her
age something of a mystery and once, when asked about it, said, “People often
wonder how old 1 am. Let me tell you. In terms of experience of life and men,
I have always 'been a hundred years old.”

Writers of the sub-continent have spent much time debating the facts of Nur
Jehan’s life and this is stiU the subject of lively internet discussion. Nur Jehan, for
instance, claimed that she was a mother at fifteen, when she was probably a little
bit older (sixteen and a half or seventeen, perhaps), having married Syed Shaukat
Hussain Rizvi, who directed her in her first sound film Khandan in 1942. She was
no more than a child herself; too young to understand, as she would later confess
but, in film terms, already a veteran, having made twelve silent films, and with
a career that went back to around 1930, when she appeared in the silent movie.
Hind ke Tare, made by Calcutta’s Indian Pictures.

Khandan, whose musical score was by Ghulam Haider, advertised her voice to
a nationwide audience, a voice that would afterwards be consistently described
as “her nightingale voice,” and which had long been a feature of music halls of
Lahore and the smaller towns of Punjab.

There is a charming story of one of Nur Jehan’s early songs. It is Lahore, some
time in the 1930s, followers of a local Pir (a Muslim holy man), have arranged
a special evening of devotional music in his honour. Among those singing for
him that day is a little girl. The Pir asks her to sing something in Punjabi. She
launches into a Punjabi folk song, a line of which had a reference to the kite
of this land of five rivers touching the skies. As she sings the words, the Pir
appears to go into a trance. When she finishes, he rises, puts his hand on the
girl’s head and prophesies, “Go forth, little girl; your kite will one day touch
the skies.” At some stage in her singing career, Nur Jehan discovered a recipe
that she felt was essential to maintain her voice: Although the conventional
wisdom was that sour and oily things are bad for the throat, Nur Jehan
loved pickles dipped in oil and she would eat enormous quantities of pickles
before she sang, then she would drink iced water, believing that it sharpened
the throat. Without such preparation, she would refuse to go anywhere near a
microphone.

Khalid Hasan, who knew her well, describes the extraordinary film world of
the 30s and 40s, as Nur Jehan was making her mark.

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Blondes and Brunettes: Bollywood's White Women

157

Rizvi, whom she married after a turbulent love affair in Lahore and Bombay, and
divorced some years after they came to Pakistan after independence, recalled the
first time he set eyes on her. His account of his life with her, Noor Jahan ki Kahani
Meri Zubani, has not even one nice thing to say about her, including her voice and
its undimmed magic, despite the passage of time. He wrote that she was no more
than eight or nine.This was in Calcutta. He was film editor at a movie studio owned
by Rai Bahadur Seth Dalsukh Karnani, a colourful and eccentric character who,
despite his years, always had an eye out for a pretty girl, of whom there was hardly
a shortage in his world. He would address all men in his Gujarati accent as “shand”
or bull, while all women were “devi,” even those he fired from their jobs. Once, he
asked the manager of the Corinthian Theatre, a man by the name of Naseer, to go
to the Punjab and come back with some girls.The man came back with fifteen to
twenty of them, among whom were the Nur Jehan sisters, the two older ones,Eiden
and Haider Bandi, and the eight-year old future queen of the Indian cinema. These
girls were collectively called “Punjab Mail.” One of the girls, Rashida, who was
related to Nur Jehan, was installed as the Rai Bahadur’s mistress. When Rizvi was
asked to come to Lahore to direct Khandan in 1942, Nur Jehan, who with her sisters
was in a dance party which performed from town to town, was in Amritsar. He
was to choose a heroine for the new movie which was being produced by Dalsukh
Pancholi. He recalls that through the help of S.P. Singha, who was vice-chancellor
of the Punjab University, several girls were sent over for audition but he did not like
any of them. He wanted his heroine to look no more than fifteen or sixteen on the
screen, which was Nur Jehan’s age at the time. He decided that it was she whom he
wanted. She was sent for but he did not tell her that she was going to play the lead.
That was when their affair began, which ended in marriage against the wishes of
her brothers who did not wish to lose her. One day, during the shooting, Rizvi said
to Nur Jehan by way of a joke, “What sort of oil do you use on your hair? It smells
awful.” He says the moment the words left his mouth, she burst out crying and just
would not stop. As a result of this incident, the shooting remained interrupted for
five or six days.

Khandan launched Nur Jehan so spectacularly that she was now in constant
demand, not only by Punjabi film-makers in Lahore but also in Bombay. By
1947, she had made fifty-five movies in Bombay, in addition to eight in Calcutta,
five in Lahore and one in Rangoon.

Manto, who knew her well, has described how fanatical some of Nur Jehan’s
fans could be. A barber in Lahore was prepared to do anything to prove he was
a true fan:

He would sing her songs all day long and never tire of talking about her. Someone
said to him, “Do you really love Nur Jehan?” “Without doubt” the barber replied
sincerely. “If you really love her can you do what the legendary Punjabi lover

Mahiwal did for his beloved Sohni? He cut a piece of his flesh from his thigh to
prove his love,” the man said. The barber gave him his sharp cut-throat razor and
said, “You can take a piece of flesh from any part ot my body.” His friend was a
strange character because he slashed away a large chunk of flesh from his arm and
ran away while the barber fainted after providing proof of his love. When the great
lover regained consciousness in Mayo Hospital, Lahore, the first words that came to
his lips were “Nur Jehan.”

Both Manto and Nur Jehan would leave India for Pakistan in 1947 but while
Manto, the intellectual who had no great affinity with the idea of having a Muslim
state called Pakistan, left Bombay with great regret, never ceasing to miss it, Nur
Jehan, always very religious, did so with gusto. When India fought Pakistan in
wars she would often arrive at the studios of the state radio quite unannounced
to sing patriotic songs to show her devotion to the state she had pledged herself
to. But when it came to choosing her favourite song she chose one she had
sung back when India was a united sub-continent. Nur Jehan was always
reluctant to choose a song as her favourite. “They are like my children. How
can I differentiate between them?” she said but, when Khalid Hasan insisted,
she thought long and hard and replied it was Badnam mohahat kaun kare
from Dost. “It was,” says Hasan, “her favourite because it was composed by that
finicky perfectionist, Sajjad,” who, she added, “never made a seedhi or straight
tune.”

Manto found nothing appealing in her acting; what appealed to him was her
singing. “To me there was just one thing about her which was phenomenal—her
voice. After Saigal, she was the only singer who impressed me. Her voice was
like pure crystal.”

In this regard he could not have been more against contemporary opinion,
which hailed her both as a great actress and a great singer, with her acting
considered provocative—a ticking bombshell. In I 947 j Nur Jehan played
opposite Dilip Kumar, still making his mark in films such as Jugnu, of which
Filmindia said, “he (Dilip Kumar) tries to do his bit but he doesn’t match
well with Nur Jehan.” The magazine found the film “dirty, disgusting, vulgar
and led a campaign to have it banned; this happened in October 1948,
although the ban was lifted a few months later. was to be Nur Jehan s

last film in India, a movie which saw a new male play-back singer emerge in
Mohammed Rafi. It went unnoticed then, but would acquire much significance
later.

Nur Jehan’s departure from India also meant another young female singer
called Lata Mangeshkar, who was the same age as Nur Jehan and had arrived
in Bombay at about the same time, found the singing stage invitingly open and
seized her chance with great aplomb. Curiously, in Anmol Ghadi, a huge Nur
Jehan hit, Nur’s screen name had been Lata.

I6B

Bollywood: A Hisiory

Manto does not believe the real Lata would have stood a chance had Nur Jehan
remained in India, but her rise was part of the remaking of Bollywood that
followed partition and the emergence of a free nation. Interestingly, Lata and Nur
Jehan remained friends and years later they would often burn up the telephone
lines between Bombay and Karachi, singing to each other.

Part III

Minting Film Gold
in Bombay

Searching for the Right Masala

India’s moment of freedom on August 15, 1947, has been described as bitter-sweet.
The bitterness came from the fact that the country was partitioned, which saw an
unofficial exchange of population between the two countries of India and Pakistan
of between ten and fifteen million in about two months, with a rrulhon people
slaughtered, and many more milhons of divided families and ruined lives.

The state of Pakistan that was created was, itself, the most curious of states.
It was created in the name of Islam, as Pakistani-Muslim leaders claimed that
Muslims could not live together with Hindus in a state where they would be
a minority. Yet the man who masterminded this remarkable twentieth century
coup, Mohammed Ali Jinnah was, probably, the most westernised, secular
politician of the sub-continent. He drank, he could not do without his peg of
whisky every evening, ate pork and could barely speak Urdu, which was soon the
national language of Pakistan. Also, Pakistan was literally two states, its western
half bordering Afghanistan on the sub-continent’s north-west borders, divided
by 1,000 miles of Indian territory before you could get to east Pakistan on the
eastern seaboard of the sub-continent, the former eastern half of Bengal.

This world of sunshine and shadow, joy mingled with great grief, was reflected
in the film industry, which saw both wrenching separation but also great
opportunities and further scope for Bombay to consolidate itself as the unrivalled
centre of the Indian film world.

The partition of the country dealt a death blow to the industry in Lahore,
capital of undivided Punjab. Lahore was essentially a Hindu and Sikh city but,
now in Pakistan, it saw an exodus of its talent to Bombay. Pran Krishen Sikand,
who had started his movie career in Lahore at the Dalsukh Pancholi’s Lahore
studios, taking the screen name Pran, had played the romantic lead opposite Nur
Jehan in Khandaan. Now, as independence drew closer he took to carrying a
knife. A few days before 15 August, he sent his family to India, following himself
soon after and never returned to Lahore. On August 14, 1947 he was in Bombay
looking for work.

SBarching for thB Righi Masala

161

There were many other film refugees from Lahore. They included fellow-
actor Om Prakash, B.R. Chopra, the man not afraid to make Ashok Kumar re¬
take a shot, the actress Kamini Kaushal and also Wali Mohammed Wall who, back
in 1940, had lured a reluctant Pran to the movies, giving him his first role in one
of the many Punjabi films made by Pancholi. He was now in Bombay, having set
up an office at Famous Studios near the racecourse at Mahalaxmi.

Bombay was a natural port of call for all of them.

Pran, for instance, born in Delhi, was fluent in Urdu, the language he was most
comfortable with, and also Hindi. Although a Punjabi, when he had made his
first film, Yamla Jat, in Lahore he could not speak Punjabi like a native and Wali
had hired a diction master to perfect his accent. Now, at twenty-seven, he had
no desire to learn a new regional language, which is what it would mean if he
had chosen to go anywhere else. The idea did not even enter his head, nor did it
of the many now being forced to seek a new film world. For them, Bombay was
already there and it was only a question of finding a space.

The arrival of the film immigrants was to transform the city more dramatically
than at any time in its previous 270 years. Ever since Gerald Aungier, the
founding father of Bombay, had developed it, the city had physically progressed
little beyond the southern and central parts of the seven islands that made it up.
In the four decades since the start of the film industry, the people who worked
in it lived either in south or central Bombay: stars, such as Suraiya and Nargis
lived along Marine Drive, Ashok Kumar lived in a huge house on the sea face at
Worli, Prithviraj lived in Matunga in central Bombay where other film folks like
Sitara Devi and Chandramohan also lived. Until 1947, Manto, socialising with
film people, rarely ventured beyond Shivaji Park in central Bombay.

The new crowd pushed the boundaries of the city further north and east,
out to what a few years previously had been fairly desolate countryside. For the
first time it began to give Bombay a feel of Hollywood in that film people now
began to live in a previously largely uninhabited part of the town and which
they could call their own. By the end of the 50s, Pali Hill in Bandra, which until
then had been considered the outer limits of Bombay, was becoming Bombay’s
Beverly Hills and even being called that. Pran, who had started life in Bombay
by staying at the Taj—he had been forced to move to cheaper hotels as he
initially struggled to find work—soon had enough work to buy a flat in Union
Park in Pali Hill surrounded by neighbours who were either directors, actors or
in the film music business. Others, like Raj Kapoor, moved out even further to
Chembur but this, in Bombay of the 1950s, was considered the outer edge of
darkness and, as a child growing up in Bombay, whenever we drove past Bandra
on to Chembur from our base in south Bombay we felt we were venturing into
very virgin territory. For miles the road stretched out past fields and villages with
not a human habitation to be seen. It is a sign of how much Bombay has grown
that today the urban city, in the usual higgledy-piggledy chaotic way that Indian

162 Bollywood: A History

cities develop, has claimed it and it would be difficult to imagine the wilderness
it was at the start of the 1950s.

Yet, if this indicated prosperity and the power of films, it had come against a
background of very conflicting messages from the Government, if not at times
downright hostility to the medium.

Back in 1927, when the Cinematograph Committee had asked Gandhi to
complete its questionnaire, he had refused, saying he had never been to the
cinema. “But even to an outsider the evil it has and is doing is patent.The good,
if it has done any at all, remains to be proved” he said.

After that, many attempts had been made to get Gandhi to change his mind
and in 1939, K.A. Abbas had written to Gandhi asking him to reconsider his
view that the cinema was as much an evil as gambling, horse-racing and playing
the stock market. “Give this little toy of ours, the cinema, which is not so useless
as it looks, a little of your attention and bless it with a smile of toleration.” But
Gandhi refused to do that; as far as he was concerned, it was one of the modern
Western evils that needed to be eradicated.

Nehru, who believed in modern Western progress, and could be expected
to be different, did not have an ideological bias against the cinema as Gandhi
did. But he did not think Indian cinema was very good. In 1939, Nehru in
his message to the Indian Motion Picture Congress, criticised the industry for
concentrating on entertainment and producing low quality films “I hope that
the industry will consider now in terms of meeting standards and of aiming at
producing high-class films which have educational and social values.”
Independence did not change Nehru. As Benegal puts it:

None of our national leaders cared for films, not even Nehru. Our pre¬
independent national leaders always saw popular Indian films as culturally wanting.
They thought they were culturally not good enough, not artistic enough, and did
not help in the evolution and development of culture. They always thought it was a
very inferior kind of work. This attitude also infected the urban upper and middle-
classes.

But, although independent India had no truck with Gandhi’s back to pre¬
industrial age ideas, the one Gandhian idea that was implemented with great
\ igoLir was prohibition. There were strict state laws about it, this being a state
subject, and in Bombay Morarji Desai, initially the local home minister, then
chief minister, was a Gandhian who believed in drinking, not alcohol every
morning, but a sip of his own urine. He enforced prohibition rigorously and
only those who got a permit, which was given on health grounds, certified by
the doctor and approved by the Collector of Customs, could legally drink. The
result was the Bombay film world, where everybody drank, found itself pushed
into a sort of ghetto, having to organise its own private parties where drink was

Searching for the Right Masala 163

available but which the hosts had to make sure did not cause any problems with
the police.

Benegal sums up the film world that began to develop in the years after
independence;

Film stars lived in Pali Hill and did their own thing. For you to be noticed on
the social scene it was important that you were not part of the film scene. People
belonging to films were seen as not important; you really did not want to mix with
them. Clubs would say no to stars as members. Clubs like WiUingdon, or Bombay
Gymkhana would never allow film stars.This attitude by clubs lasted for many years
until quite recently. Even clubs like the Otters Club, a relatively new club, only
opened about fifteen or eighteen years ago, Feroze Khan, an actor and producer
applied to be a member. They said they did not want film actors. But then he
applied again. He was called for an interview. He is a very funny man. He said I have
acted in forty films so that will tell you I am not an actor. In the 1950s, whenever
there was help needed—flood rehef, like when the Chinese war, or Pakistan war
was on—films stars were wheeled out. Then film stars would go on lorries with
huge sheets spread out in front of them and people would give them money for
flood relief or other charities. Bombay was then a small town. Bandra was the edge
of Bombay. Beyond Bandra was no man’s land, wild country. And the industry was
never mainstream in the way it has now become.

The hostility of the politicians to films resulted in the most curious
phenomenon. Films which were actually made to highlight the Indian freedom
struggle were banned as if the censors thought the British were still ruling India.
Hemen Gupta’s Bhuli Nai, which means ‘I have not forgotten’, made in 1948,
centred on the partition of Bengal in 1905 and was about a secret organisation
that seeks to use violence to end British rule. The censor felt it was too violent
and banned it. Gupta’s next film. Forty Two, made the following year, also ran
into problems. It was based on a real incident in Midnapore, during the 1942
Quit India movement, which had seen police shoot unarmed protestors outside
a police station. But, then, faced by protests, they were forced to surrender the
station. Eventually, the area was bombed by British planes to retake the station.
One scene showed how a man, whose daughter had been raped, was killed by
being dragged behind a lorry. The Commissioner of Police, who was also the
censor, banned the film in Bengal as not suitable.

Some banning orders on films suggested the censor might have got out of
bed on the wrong side that day. So, in 1949, Matlahi was “rejected,” as the censor
put it, because it was a “sloppy, stunt movie.” Interestingly, the Indian censors
now began to display an intense Victorian prudery, totally impervious to the
fact that this was the land that had given the world the Kama Sutra and had
some of the most erotic sculptures on display in ancient rocks and caves. This

164

Bollywood: A History

Searching for the Right Masala

1B5

was very noticeable in their attitude to any display of intimacy between men
and women.

Before independence, the British censors were keen to make sure the white
woman’s exalted status was not compromised in the eyes of the natives but they
had no objections to natives kissing each other. Kissing scenes were common,
went on for minutes and Sulochana featured in several very erotic embraces with
Dinshaw Billimoria in Anarkali and Heer Ranjah. Homi Wadia even got Nadia in
a near-nude bathing scene in Hunterwali past the censors. But, now the censors
drew the line at kissing. The moment a man or a woman got close enough to
kiss, the film-maker, aware lips could not meet, would suddenly introduce some
object like a tree or a bush and the lovers usually burst into song.The song they
mimed could often be very suggestive, even erotic, but their lips could not meet.
Bollywood was forced by the censors to find a new style to convey physical
feeling between lovers.

The federal nature of India also made life difficult for Bollywood. Entertainment
tax levied on films was levied by the state and some states levied tax as high as
7S% on ticket sales. There were restrictions on where a cinema should be built
and Hindi films suffered most as they fell in no man’s land. They could not
expect regional patronage as they were all-India films and there was no question
of support from the Indian federal Government. While state Governments in the
different regions promoted films in their own languages, a Hindi film was seen
as a rival and state Governments were inclined to tax it heavily.

The fact that the Indian film industry was becoming globally important did
not make any impression. Even before 1947, India was the third largest film
production country m the world and the film industry was the fifth largest
industry in the country. During the war, production had declined but, as soon
as it ended, more film stock was available and as wartime restrictions were lifted
production increased. From ninety-nine films in 1945, it more than doubled to
200 by 1946 and by 1950 it would reach 250 and make India the second biggest
film-producing country in the world, only Hollywood produced more. This,
given it was a third-world country, mired in poverty, was remarkable.

For two years after independence, the film industry tried to persuade the
Government to listen to its demands. When all that failed on June 30, 1949, the
various industry associations, showing a unity which was rare, organised the All
India Cinema Protest Day and all cinema houses closed for the day.

The response was predictable. A film enquiry committee was set up, headed by
S.K. Patil, the Tammany style boss of Congress politics in Bombay. It included
Sircar and Shantaram as its members and, as in 1927, it heard evidence, went
round the country, and a year and a half later, produced its report. This showed
the country had 3,250 cinema houses, sixty studios and made around 250 films
a year. The capital invested in films were Rs 410 million which included Rs 90
million in working capital; 600 million people went to the cinema every year.

which suggested many people saw many more than one movie a year, producing
an income of Rs 200 million. But, while this made Indian movies second to
Hollywood in terms of film production, the committee was very critical of
the way the film industry was run: its organisation, its financing, “choice and
handling of themes, the availability of talent and trained personnel, professional
organisation and conduct and the supply of goods and services.” In that sense
the industry had appeared to have moved little since 1927 when the predecessor
of this committee had castigated Indian films for being “generally crude in
comparison with Western pictures.”

This was, of course, one reason why Indian intellectuals shunned Hindi films
and, significantly,why the Patil committee noted how Indian intellectuals were
still apathetic to the industry.

Like its predecessor, this report made some very sensible recommendations.
This included that a fixed proportion of the entertainment tax be used to set up
a Film Finance Corporation to provide cheap finance, and for a school to train
actors and technicians. But like all reports, it gathered dust for nearly ten years
before some of the recommendations, like the Film Finance Corporation, began
to be implemented. As always in India, change came, but slowly.

The Government could claim that it had more things than films to worry about.
India had become a free nation with awesome problems. In a country of nearly 400
miUion people only 18% were literate, the average life expectancy was twenty-six
years and there were a million refugees, as well as enormous food shortages.

The politicians were also seeking to create a nation and, in a certain sense,
India had as great a task of nation-building as the United States did, as it moved
from thirteen colonies on independence from Britain in 1776 to the fifty states
today. True, India did not have to acquire land as the expanding American
republic did but, in 1947, it did have to integrate the 565 princely states covering
more than a third of the Indian landmass and two thirds of its population who
had treaty arrangements with the British. All of them on August 15 1947, had the
option of Joining either India or Pakistan or going independent. The integration
of these states into the modern republic of India was the work of SardarVallabhai
Patel, the tough, no-nonsense Gujarati politician who ran Gandhi’s political
machine, and became deputy Prime Minister in Nehru’s first Indian Cabinet. He
bullied these princes into becoming part of India, giving up their princely states
in return for a privy purse. When the old ruler created problems, the new India
solved the situation with the sort of show of force, as in Hyderabad in 1948, by
what was called police action but was the use of the Indian army.

Shyam Benegal’s early upbringing is a perfect illustration of how curious
British rule in India was:

My father, who was a nationalist, had a warrant for his arrest in British India. So

he came to Hyderabad to live under the Nizam. No warrant of British India was

166 Bollywood: A History

enforceable in the princely states, not even, I think, a death warrant. But we went
to school in British India in the cantonment, Secunderabad, where British troops
were stationed. School was British, home was Princely India. We made the journey
every day.You could see the difference. The British cantonment was more orderly,
more organised. My father had started off by sending his children to a Gurukool, a
very Indian school but, then, seeing the education they were receiving, he changed
his mind and sent us all to a convent school. He was a photographer, who had a
studio and also had a i (5 mm movie camera and, as his children were born—I was
sixth out of ten children—he would shoot home movies of the children. I grew
up with these movies. He would hang a huge sheet in the sitting room and these
movies would be projected. But we would also go to the cinema in the cantonment,
which was next to the club and the tennis court, and we would see movies sitting
in the projectionist’s room or standing next to the tennis court. This is where I saw
One Million BC, a silent movie starring Charlie Chaplin, and also Laurel and Hardy
films.

There was violence in the Indian nation-making, although not on the scale of
the United States where the Americans slaughtered five million of their native
Indian population, creating their country, and then fought a civil war to preserve
it. The stories of these kiUings would be spun by Hollywood into Westerns, goodies
versus baddies films, cowboys versus Indians. It could be said that the violence of
partition was a sort of Indian civil war, but Bollywood did not tackle that subject.
There were films like Chinnamool in 1950 by cameraman turned director, Nemia
Ghosh, about the migration of millions of Hindus from former east Bengal to west
Bengal but we had to wait until 1973, when M. S. Sathyu, in his directorial debut,
made Garam Hawa (Hot Wind), finally dealing with the trauma of partition. This
showed a Muslim in Agra who, despite losing his family, his daughter’s suicide,
and his feUow-Muslims leaving for Pakistan, chose to stay on in India. It is widely
considered to be the best film to deal with the issues of partition.

VS. Naipaul has called what the Indians have done since independence “A
million mutinies,” but what made the process even more complicated was that
in 1947, India did not have too many symbols that could be embraced by all
Indians.

The British state in India had the appearance of a state but it lacked many of
the essentials of a state. So, while a common criminal law was set up for British
India in the middle of the nineteenth century, even this, as the Benegal example
shows, did not extend to the princely states, and the British never made any
moves to change, let alone modernise, the personal law of the Indians. The
Hindus, Muslims, and the other Indian communities, conducted their marriages,
inheritance, etc., according to their ancient customs and religious beliefs. The
result was that Hindus and Muslims could take more than one wife, with Barua
having two, and Shantaram three. Hindu law did change, causing, as we shall see.

Searching for the Right Masala 167

Nargis’ problems, but Muslim personal law was never changed; if anything, it
lagged behind personal law in orthodox Muslim countries, and remains one of
the most controversial issues in the country.

Although the British had created the railways and the armed forces, both great
achievements of the Raj, they had to be reshaped to fit the independent nation.
Only two institutions created during British rule were truly all India in scope:
cricket and films.

The problem for films was to find a formula that would work. How difficult
this was can be seen that in 1947, nearly 70% of the producers were newcomers:
157 out of 214. But by the end of 1948, only twenty-five of them were still
in business; many of the others, who had fallen by the wayside, had not even
completed their pictures.

Unlike Hollywood, Indians could not even have a single narrative to tell the
story of how they won freedom. Bimal Roy had made a film about Subhas
Bose’s Indian National Army (INA) formed with Indian soldiers who had been
captured by the Axis powers.Their mission was to fight for India’s freedom. But
Nehru had denounced Bose, saying if he came with his Japanese-backed army
to India, he would fight him.

Bimal Roy’s film about Bose’s army was called Pahela Aadmi. The title ‘The
First Man’, suggested a reverential treatment for Bose. In 1946, Shantaram
decided to tackle the other side of the story with Dr Kotnis KiAmar Kabani (The
Immortal story of Dr Kotnis).This was based on the real life story ofDwarkanath
Kotnis, who had led the Indian medical team to China to help the Chinese resist
Japanese aggression, a mission that Nehru had sponsored and which had seen
Kotnis serve in Mao’s Eight Route Army. But, as he was there, Bose, in alliance
with the Japanese, was telling the Chinese this was a new Japan they should make
peace with. The film did not deal with such Indian contradictions, making it
instead into a love story where Kotnis falls in love and marries a Chinese nurse,
Ching Lan, played by Jayashree, before dying in an ambush.

However, when Shantaram wrote to the Congress leaders asking for
endorsement, they rebuffed him, with Gandhi’s secretary saying, “Don’t harass
the Mahatma with requests for blessings for such work.”With Nehru now Prime
Minister, Shantaram thought that, as he had sent Kotnis to China, he would
like to be present at its inaugural screening in Delhi. Nehru declined, feeling
Shanataram was trying to exploit his name for commercial gain. Nehru did have
a point. Shantaram, while taken with the story, based on a novel by Abbas and VR
Sathe, had also made the film because that was the only way he could get some
more of the rationed film stock. He had started making it in 1944, and passed it
off as a War Effort film, which was shown in London, with Shantaram spending
some time trying to have it shown in America. Although the film was a success
in India, its difficulties with politicians showed the problems of bringing the
complex story of the country onto the screen.

168

Bollywood: A History

Searching for the Right Masala

1B9

The film-makers’ answer to this problem of constructing a narrative of India
was to opt for what is now called the Bollywood masala film, where every
conceivable cinematic spice was put in one pot and stirred, making a mix quite
unique. In the process, the film-makers ot Bollywood created a new cinematic
world, very different to Hollywood.

Benegal says:

We have a different tradition of cinema compared to the Western tradition. The
genres that Hollywood has were never created. The West broke up everything.
They said this is drama, this is comedy. Hollywood created different genres: thrillers,
supernatural films, caper movies, social films, comedies and tragedies. Because we
have such a diverse audience we want to cater to different kinds of taste. And in
order to do that we had to keep a common denominator, so you have to put in a
little of everything so it attracts diverse kinds of people. Our films have everything.

We created an all-encompassing genre. The same story will have comic sequences,
will have tragic sequences, melodrama, music, song, and dance. I suppose it came
because the artistic tradition in theatre, or any of our performing arts, have been
of that kind, Look at our performing arts. Who were the performers? They were
itinerants. They moved from place to place. And, naturally, not each place would
want the same performance. So they had to have a good variety in their acts. To
cater for a wide range of interests and sensibilities you had to create a form that
would be suitable for everyone. So that is how our dramatic form developed.
Popular cinema followed that tradition. What satisfies the audience here does not
satisfy them intellectually; it is the emotional charges.The situations are typical, the
situations more or less the same but they make the audience cry, they make the
audience laugh, they make the audience enjoy the song, make their feet tap to the
dances, all those kind of things. The same film has to have everything in it. That’s
traditional, much like our food, because otherwise we don’t feel satisfied, either
with our food, or our entertainment.

Benegal’s reference to food is shrewd. A proper Indian meal is an amazingly
free-wheeling experience compared with the tightly structured Western cuisine.
In the West, meals are a linear progression, moving in a certain stately order:
from small starters to larger main courses and then desserts, with each course
very distinctive and totally different to the previous one. Indian meals have no
such neat, linear progression of starter, main course and pudding. On the Indian
dming-table, one course follows another in no particular order and some Indians
even begin their meal with puddings, or eat them in between mouthfuls of
savoury. The Indian Thali, one of the classic meals of India, is a vivid example of
how unstructured an Indian meal can be. All the various dishes, including sweets,
are put in little pots with various kinds of food and arranged circularly round the
edge of a stainless steel plate. Watch an Indian eat and he might dip into any of

the pots or all of them, including the pot containing the sweets. Indians say this
is a joyous symphony of diverse tastes, colours and flavours in one mouthful.

And so Bollywood now started making films which had action, violence, a
wronged mother, a lost son, a foiled rape attempt, a successful rape attempt, a sub¬
plot involving a dastardly criminal and a maid—who may or may not be a lost
daughter—and the whole thing interspersed with lots of songs. In a Hollywood
musical, to which Bollywood films have been mistakenly compared, the songs
arise from the story and move the story forward. In Bollywood, the start of the
song meant presenting vaudeville on screen, with a chance to show extravagant
costumes and scenery; these often bore no relation to the narrative, and nearly
always meant the location of the movie suddenly changed, often without any
explanation, from a crowded street scene in Bombay, to lush mountains and
wonderful streams of water. In the 1950s, it was Kashmir that provided the exotic
location, then it became the ski slopes of Switzerland or, in more recent times,
Scotland, or even New Zealand (the sudden popularity of Scotland and New
Zealand has to do with tax concessions offered to Indian film-makers).

The divorce from Hollywood had been coming for a long time. Benegal dates
the moment from 1931 and the arrival of sound:

During the silent era of Indian cinema, our films used to look like every other
film made everywhere else in the world. But the moment sound came, we suddenly
went back to our theatrical traditional form. That moment was in 1931, when our
first sound film was made (AlamAra), which had something like thirty songs. After
that sixteen or seventeen songs became the norm, and most films from then on
used to have those number of songs because music was an essential part of Indian
cinema.

The 40s further fortified this process. However, through the 30s and 40s, the
Hindi film industry maintained one Hollywood tradition, that of literature being
the source for films. Films were based on novels by authors such as Tagore, Sarat
Chandra Chatteijee and Hindi’s greatest writer, Premchand, all of whom had
novels turned into films.

Here is Benegal again:

All the great American writers wrote for Hollywood, whether it was people like
Hemmingway or Fitzgerald. It happened in India in the 19305, We had Premchand,
who wrote a couple of films. He wrote a film called Majdoor (Labourer). It was a
huge failure in 1934. He got so cheesed off, he died soon after, Amrit Lai Nagar, a
very fine Hindi writer, worked in films. In the 30’s, a lot of very good Hindi writers,
some good Urdu writers, worked for the cinema. Saadat Hasan Manto, the finest
short story writer in Urdu, used to work as a writer in Bombay Talkies. He went
to Pakistan in 1947 and died of drink. Others gave up, disillusioned by what they

17Q

Bollywood; A History

saw much in the fashion of what happened to writers who went to Hollywood.
Because, you see, film business and writing are two completely different things. And
the markets are so different.The same person who would read a hook, would he see
a film? That’s open to question. I don’t know if it actually happens or not.

But, while the writer may have migrated from Hollywood, the idea that a film
must be based on a book, or some already existing literary product, continued. In
India, however, there was a total divorce in the way Bollywood and Hollywood
started making a movie. Hollywood still relied on the novel. In contrast,
Bollywood went back to the oral story telling age, with a story being told orally
to a high profile star. If he liked what he heard, then the movie went ahead. The
story was never written down and no full bound pre-shooting script was ever
produced. Script-writers worked on sets as the film was being shot, and actors
and actresses were given the lines to read literally minutes before the scene was
shot, with the star actor able to modify the script while shooting or even modify
the script of others in the film.

Benegal dates the full emergence of this style in the 1960s, rather than in the
1950s;

Many of the films which were made in the early 40s and 50s were made to a script.
No Bimal Roy film, no Mehboob film, no Guru Dutt film was made on the spur of
the moment.They all had written scripts; some time from the 1960’s onwards, what
happened was that everybody who started to make films began by asking: what is
a valuable property? This is done in all cinema all over the world. In Hollywood, it
was a book. Here it was the star. So, if the star is a valuable property, if you have a big
star, it means that your risk level has come down. Similarly, a film music director’s
star value reduces the risk factor; you can pre-sell your film for a much higher price.
This means creating a package of people. So, they would first make a package of
people, even before you have thought of what the subject of the film would be.This
started in the mid 1960s and it remained that way for a long period.

Back in 1938, a few years before he died, Tagore had said, in one of his classical
comments, Indian cinema had not found its own voice and, until it finds it’s
own voice and its own aesthetic, it is in such a state of infancy that it’s simply a
pneumatic art. Now, a few years into independent India, Bollywood was about to
find its most authentic, representative voice, although it was not quite the voice
that Tagore had in mind.

The man who would help find it—Raj Kapoor—was a man who was more
than an actor, director, writer, even song-writer, or producer. In truth, he was
Bollywood’s first and last showman. Between 1935 and 1990, he acted in over
seventy films and, during that time, no other Bollywood personality came close
to matching him, let alone expressing the flamboyance and extravagance that

to matching him, let alone expressing the tiamooyance ana extravagance mat

Searching for the Right Masala

171

marked his approach to cinema and to life. It would be easy to debunk his
films: they lacked the depth of Satyajit Ray, the subtlety of Guru Dutt, or the
searing honesty of Bimal Roy. They were the ultimate expression of the art form
Bollywood was now devising as its very own. The story lines in the films were
often very simple and told with a minimum of fuss; but, they combined high-
voltage melodrama and toe-tapping songs, and were so well spiced for every taste
that they have lasted remarkably well, sixty years after they were first screened.

Years later, these films would be called the first of Bollywood’s masala
entertainments (the word had not been employed when Raj Kapoor made
his first movie, but it is apt). What is more, they were so successful that Raj
Kapoor had found movie spices that appealed not only to Indians but to many
millions beyond India, in a swathe of countries stretching through the Middle-
East, eastern Europe and north Africa. He was the first Indian to became a film
superstar, whose popularity in his heyday was greater than that of the Hollywood
stars of his day. He would not have a match until Amitabh Bachchan emerged
nearly three decades later. But even Bachchan, for all his superstar status, has not
combined the many roles Raj Kapoor played or has even attempted to do so.
Bachchan’s ‘angry young man’ did define a new style of Bollywood films but Raj
Kapoor’s ‘tramp’ remains the abiding image of Bollywood. But unlike the very
literate Bachchan, Raj Kapoor did not even pass his matriculation examination,
and a matriculate failure in India is shorthand for saying a man is truly illiterate
and well below the salt.

The Great Indian Showman

173

The Great Indian Showman

Raj Kapoor was undoubtedly the most complex man Indian cinema has
produced—a man who fell in love with his leading ladies, one of whom not
only inspired his studio but financed some of his early films. He always dressed
his leading ladies in white, as a symbol of his love. For a Hindu, and Raj Kapoor
was a devout Hindu, white was the colour of mourning, and the colour widows
wore at the moment of their husband’s death.

The eldest son of Prithviraj and Ramsarni Kapoor, Raj Kapoor was a Pathan,
born in Peshawar on December 14, 1924, to parents who were quite young.
Prithviraj was eighteen, and his wife was sixteen. Raj had such blue eyes and
such white skin that often, while walking home from school, he would be
mistaken for a white boy and taken away to a restaurant and fed by whites,
while his darker brother, Shammi, would sit outside the restaurant watching his
older brother gulp down the food. With father, Prithviraj, pursuing a career on
both the stage and the screen and constantly on the move, the Kapoors led a
nomadic life and so Raj was often in and out of schools in various parts of the
country. Early in life he suffered the sort of tragedy that might well have scarred
him. Raj was about six when his four-year-old brother, Bindi, ate rat poison
and died, while a second brother, Devi, also died a fortnight later, probably from
pneumonia. Raj had to fetch his father, as Bindi lay dying. He would never stop
mourning his brothers. This may explain why, throughout his childhood, he
craved food and was therefore rather plump. He had less than fond memories
of his childhood. “My childhood memories” he would later recall, “are pitted
with indelible scars of experience. 1 was a fatty. Every sort of practical joke was
played on me. Apart from some vivid patches of happiness, my childhood days
were quite miserable.”

And it was in order to protect himself that he assumed the role of a comedian:

f soon picked up the most natural defence mechanism—the one used by all the

great jokers of the world. I learnt that the more one resisted being a target, the

more one suffered. So, instead, I put on the mask of a Joker by reacting as though 1
thoroughly enjoyed being made the butt of practical jokes. Indeed, I even took this
a step further by inventing jokes against myself, which would make my colleagues
laugh. You see, 1 was seeking that which every schoolboy seeks—the love, affection
and esteem of others. I wanted to be liked.

There was little affection from his father with whom he had a very complicated
relationship. Prithviraj was already the great actor of Indian stage and screen by
the time Raj grew up, a man who, both in looks and achievements, towered over
his son: tall, broad-shouldered and with enviable good looks, and a wonderful
voice, that was made for the stage and which was his metier. Raj Kapoor kept
away from the stage because he feared being seen as his father’s son, whereas in
films he could be his own man, although he did learn some of the elements of
stagecraft, camerawork and lighting while working at Prithvi Theatres, which
were set up by his father.

Raj had acted as a child in the movies and was only eleven when he made
his first film, Inquilab, in 1935, where the stars were his father and Durga Khote.
This was followed by a Debaki Bose film. After the Earthquake. Prithviraj was very
worried that his son might suffer the same fate that Jackie Coogan, a Hollywood
child actor, did. Prithviraj believed that his son should get no favours but learn
the hard way. While he recognised his son might be a success, he also feared he
might fail dreadfully. Not only had Raj failed to matriculate, he had failed to get
into the cadet corps and also the navy. Prithviraj was none too pleased when Raj,
having failed his matriculation, and struggling with Latin, told his father that he
would rather learn from ‘the university of life’, which meant going into films to
produce, direct, and act.

As we have seen, Raj got a break in films with Kidar Sharma in 1947. It was
Prithviraj who had persuaded his friend, Kidar, to take on his son.The story goes
that the day Raj Kapoor started to work for the studio he waited outside his
father’s house. His father was about drive to work but insisted that his son take
the bus. It was his way of starting him at the bottom.

However, on the set of the film Kidar Sharma was making, there was the
first of many Raj Kapoor moments, which would change his life dramatically.
Sharma had started him, as he said he would, right at the bottom, third assistant
and clapper boy. Sharma was filming Vish Kanya. But as Sharma recalls, before
giving the clap for the shot, Raj would always comb his hair and pose in front
of the camera and only then give the clap. That day, Sharma wanted to take a
close-up as the sun was going down and had told Raj not to comb his hair for, if
the sunset was missed, it would mean having to make a forty to fifty mile return
journey to the same location the next day. But Raj just carried on, and this time
for good measure, caught the hero’s beard in the clapperboard and it came off.
Sharma lost his temper and slapped Raj Kapoor in front of the whole unit.

174

Bcilywcod; A History

The Great Indian Showman

175

Afterwards, Sharma felt wretched over his loss of temper and spent a sleepless
night worrying about it. Raj was, after all, his friend’s son and he was working for
free.The next morning Sharma called Raj into his office. It is said that the marks
of the slap could still be seen on Raj’s skin, although this may be retrospective
imagination. What is undeniable, however, is that Sharma gave him a cheque for
RS5000 and signed him up as the hero of his next venture, Neel Kamal, which
also introduced Madhubala to Hindi cinema. Three other films followed: Chittor
Vijay, Dil Ki Rani and Jail Yatra. But all this was a prelude to what Raj Kapoor
really wanted to do—to make films in his own way and under his own banner. As
he later put it, “The money I got from acting I saved and that is how I became
a producer, director and an actor all in one, at the start of my career. My own
company, R.K. Films, was thus born in the year 1947.”

R.K. Films was first set up with an office at Famous Studios, and here Raj
would produce, direct and act in his first film, Aag. Aag means fire and the 1948
story describes a theatre producer and three women all in flashback, and was
based on his father’s experiences. Some critics have seen this as a film which
displayed the anger inside Raj Kapoor, but it is a beginner’s film: the narrative is
weak, although the love scenes show touches of the master to come. His mother
had doubted his ability to make a movie without money, saying “You can’t fry
pakoras in spit,” and Raj Kapoor had to mortgage everything, including his car,
to make the film. He even borrowed money from his former servant to pay for
tea and food for his unit. When he tried to get the film released, distributors were
not interested. One of them even fell asleep during the screening. But he woke
up to say he never looked at a film and always backed the man, and pressed a one
rupee silver coin in Raj Kapoor’s hands.The film ran for sixteen weeks and Raj
Kapoor now began to plan the film that he felt would truly launch his career.

This was, Barsaat, released in 1949. He seemed to name his films after elements,
as this one meant ‘rain.’ It proved a great hit and brought together what may be
called the ‘Raj Kapoor film clan.’These were the music composers Shankar and
Jaikshen, the lyricists Shailendra and Hasrat Jaipuri, cinematographer Radhu
Karmakar, art director M.R. Achrekar, the playback singers Lata Mangeshkar and
Mukesh, who sang the songs Raj Kapoor mimed to in the movies, and above all
his leading lady, Nargis.

If the story was fairly banal, the songs sung by Lata in the film made the
movie such a success—songs such as ‘Mujhe kisi se pyar, Jiya hekarar hai’, and
‘Hawa mein udta jaaye’, and the role of Nargis, was even more crucial. Nargis had
acted with him in Aag, but now she became the very fabric of Raj Kapoor films
both on screen and off screen, as his lover. The emblem of R.K. Films seemed
to symbolise that. Raj Kapoor would play the violin while the heroine, Nargis,
would run into his arms. The shot would be frozen, with the hero holding the
violin in one hand and the lady in the other, conveying a double theme of music
and love that was now to become the trademark of all his films.

The story of Nargis and Raj Kapoor is one that, if offered at a Bollywood
storytelling session, would probably have been rejected. Nargis had been a star
long before Raj Kapoor combed his hair once too often. Nargis was introduced to
cinema at the age of five, and was known as Baby Rani in the 1936 film, Naachwali.
Her first lead role came at the age of fourteen in 1943, in Taqdeer, a comedy directed
by Mehboob Khan. Born Fatima Rashid in 1929 to a Hindu father, Mohan Babu,
and a Muslim mother, Jaddanbai, Nargis had been brought up as a Muslim. If Raj
Kapoor had to come to terms with Prithviraj, then Nargis was ruled by her mother
who always called her ‘Baby’, using the English term, although her mother tongue
was Urdu. In her world, Jaddanbai was almost as great a figure as Prithviraj, having
been a well-known actress, singer, composer and even a director herself. Jaddanbai
established a production company, Sangeet Films, in 1936.

Raj Kapoor was spurred by wanting to prove to his father that he would
become a success without the help of his father. Jaddanbai wanted to make
Nargis a star, so that Jaddanbai’s old age would be secure. Manto, who knew
Jaddanbai well, writes, “Nargis could only have become an actress, given the fact
of her birth. Jaddanbai was getting on and though she had two sons, her entire
concentration was on Baby Nargis, a plain-looking girl who could not sing.”

This was the Bombay film world of the 1940s, when the inability to sing was a
major disadvantage for any actor or actress, but particularly an actress. Nur Jehan
was beginning to make her mark and there was Suriya, who could both sing and
act. Born in Lahore she, like Nargis, had made her debut as a child star when
just twelve years of age. The following year, in 1942, when she did the playback
for Mehtaab in Sharda, under the music director, Naushad’s, direction, she was so
short then that she had to stand on a stool to reach the microphone. However,
by the time Nargis emerged, Suraiya was in her prime, having been launched
as a singing star in the Bombay Talkies film, Humaari Baat, in 1943 and then
starring in several films opposite K.L. Saigal. By 1948-49, Suraiya was the highest
paid female star of her time. At this stage she was generating the sort of hysteria
comparable only to Rajesh Khanna in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Shop-
owners would draw down their shutters just to see her films on the first day
of their release; crowds would throng outside her residence at Marine Drive in
Bombay just to get a glimpse of her, and the actor, Dharmendra, recalls going to
see the film Dillagi, which was released in 1949, some forty times! Suraiya seemed
to have everything: not just a fine singing voice but also the finer rudiments of
acting, and her performances on the screen expertly integrated gesture, music
and speech. Between Nargis and Suraiya there was intense hatred, with the fight
being led by their mothers on both sides.

Manto describes a meeting Jaddanbai had organised when she wanted Ashok
Kumar to take the lead part in one of her productions. Manto had been taken
along to the meeting by Ashok Kumar for moral support against the mother and
daughter combination.The talk was about money, big money, says Manto: “Each

ana love tnat was now to oecome tne traaemarx 01 aii ms uims.

daughter combination.The talk was about money, big money, says Manto: “Each

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paisa was carefully discussed and accounted for. Nargis was pretty businesslike.
She seemed to suggest, ‘Look Ashok, I agree that you are a polished actor and
famous but I cannot be undermined. You will have to concede that I can be your
equal in acting. Off and on the woman in her would come to life as if she was
telling Ashok,‘I know there are thousands of girls who are in love with you but,
I, too, have thousands of admirers and if you don’t believe me ask anyone; maybe
you, too, will become my admirer one of these days.”

Suraiya, being the leading actress, came into the conversation and when her
name came up Jaddanbai, says Manto;

....pulled a long face and started saying nasty things about her family, pulling her
down as if she was doing it out of a sense of duty. She said that Suraiya’s voice was
bad, she could not hold a note, she had no music training, that her teeth were bad
and so on. I am sure that, had someone gone to Suraiya’s home she would have
witnessed the same kind of surgery being performed on Nargis and Jaddanbai. The
woman Suraiya called grandmother, who was actually her mother, would have taken
a drag on her huqqua (a long- stemmed Indian pipe) and told even nastier stories
about Jaddanbai and Nargis. I know that whenever Nargis’s name came up, Suriaya’s
mother would look disgusted and compare her face to a rotting papaya.

But it was Suraiya whose film career was soon rotting. By 1951, Suraiya could
hardly get a role. Her great voice was no longer the asset it had been. By then,
playback singing had been so entrenched that an actress who could also sing,
counted for nothing. In fact, there was no further need for them. She faded away
and while there were some attempts at comeback, by the late 50s she was very much
yesterday’s woman and spent the last forty years of her hfe in reclusive retirement,
living alone in her apartment on Bombay’s Marine Drive, not far from where
Nargis had lived, with only the sea as her constant companion. She died in 2004.

jaddanbai had played her cards superbly and long before the doors finally shut on
Suraiya’s flat, Nargis was estabhshed as the foremost heroine of the era. Even before
Raj Kapoor came knocking at her door, she had starred opposite Dihp Kumar in
films like Melajogan, Babul, and Deedar, as a femme fatale, condemned by her beauty.
When Manto had first seen her as a child of eleven or twelve, he remarked that,
“she was a thin-legged girl with an unattractive, oblong face and two unlit eyes.”
By now, she had filled out as a woman and she was, he writes, “simple and playful
and was always blowing her nose as if she had a perennial cold—this was used in
the movie Barsaat as an endearing habit. Her wan face indicated that she had acting
talent. She was in the habit of talking with her lips slighdy joined. Her smile was
self-conscious and was carefully cultivated. One could say that she would use these
mannerisms as raw a material to forge her acting style.”

She had done so with dramatic effect in another film released the same year
as Barsaat Mehboob Khan’s Andaz, where she was the female lead opposite

Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor. It was in this film that she displayed on screen
something that had not been seen before—the modern Indian woman.

Very like the real hfe meeting with Ashok Kumar, where she combined
an understanding of the movie business and the know-how to project her
femininity, in this film, she played a modern young woman who dresses in
western style clothes and who runs her father’s business empire. She played both
a headstrong, free-spirited child of a millionaire, who could also have friendships
with the opposite sex. For Indian audiences, the woman Nargis played was
amazingly modern yet, in the end, reassuringly traditional.

The film shows her married to Raj Kapoor, but also friendly with Dilip
Kumar, a man who had once rescued her and who now looks after her business.
Kapoor suspects her of being unfaithful and Nargis shoots Dilip Kumar to prove
her fidelity. In jail, she tells Kapoor that it was a mistake to be so modern and
hopes her daughter will not follow her example. In the film, Nargis manages to
go beyond the usual roles given to Indian women at that stage and convey the
plight of a woman torn between two men, which was a daring new subject in
Indian movies. The film shows Nargis responding to both men’s love, as she is
obviously not just friends with Dilip Kumar. In fact, when Dilip Kumar declares
his love for her on her wedding day, her reaction is not of shock but one that
only confirms her suspicions.

It was a new role for the Indian cinema and defined Nargis’s image for the
decade to come. This was an Indian woman who could also be western—not
afraid to wear sharp elegant western clothes, both sporting and casual. The two
men in her life are also seen wearing suits.This is at a time when western dress,
particularly for a woman, was synonymous with being morally loose and corrupt.
Nargis, however, had the ability to carry it off and in Raj Kupoor’s Awara she was
the first Bollywood actress to wear a bathing suit. Instead of causing a scandal,
she produced quite a stir.

Manto had been right to predict that Nargis would use her mannerisms to
break away from the theatrical approach of acting with naturalistic methods. She
used her hand gestures very well—the ‘palm to forehead’ swoon, a finger to the
edge of a smiling mouth, to indicate coyness, and a fist against the temple to
indicate anxiety. Indian actresses before her had used expansive, often hammy,
gestures to convey emotion. Nargis used simple, effective, and natural gestures.

It is a measure of how important actresses still were in that era, and in
particular Nargis, that she was paid more than twice as much as Raj Kapoor and
even more than Dilip Kumar, receiving Rs35,ooo to Dilip Kumar’s Rs25,ooo and
Raj Kapoor’s Rsi5,ooo.

So, when Raj Kapoor came calling on Nargis at her flat, quite unannounced
(he had come to see Jaddanbai), he could be dismissed quite contemptuously
by Nargis. “A fat blue-eyed pinkie has visited me,” she told her friend, Lettitia.
Kapoor was, on the other hand, awestruck. He later recalled, “She had been

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frying pakodas when I rang the bell. And when she opened the door she
accidentally brushed her hand with hasean (a yellowish paste) on it to cover
her hair.” Raj Kapoor was so overwhelmed that he rushed back to the studio
and asked for Nargis to be written into the script. He would never forget the
scene. More than a quarter century later in 1973 , with Nargis long out of Raj
Kapoor’s life and a new sensation, Dimple Kapadia, being introduced in the teen
hit Bobby, there was a scene in which Raj, played by Raj Kapoors son Rishi
Kapoor, goes to Bobby’s house and she answers the door casually dressed, her
hair dishevelled.

In Aag, Jaddanbai had insisted that Nargis, with already eight films behind
her, be given a higher billing than the two other actresses, Kamini Kaushal and
Nigal Sultana. Although she had agreed a fee of Rsio.ooo Nargis’ brother saw to
it that this was increased to Rs40,ooo. During Aag, Nargis noticed that pinkie,
as she called Raj was getting quite fresh. By the time Barsaat was made, she was
more than happy for him to be fresh and the relationship would develop into a
love affair. Madhu Jain, in The Kapoors, a history of the family, compares this love
affair to that between Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn. Tracy, a Catholic,
could not divorce his wife. Kapoor who had had an arranged marriage just four
months before he met Nargis, could also not leave his wife, although during his
career his wife often did leave him but always came back. Nor did Raj Kapoor
pursue the option that Barua, Shantaram and later Dharmendra did, of taking a
second wife.

Raj Kapoor would later say, “Nargis was my inspiration, men sphoortti [my
energy].Women have always meant a lot in my life, but Nargis meant more than
anybody else. I used to always tell her Krishna is my wife and she is the mother
of my children. 1 want you to be the mother of my films.

Visitors who came to his studio saw them behave as a couple might, Nargis
cutting mangoes for him, Nargis clipping his nails.

Jaddanbai had an inkling of the love blossoming and initially tried to stop the
affair. Raj Kapoor wanted to shoot scenes in Kashnur, as it became increasingly
popular with the Bombay film world. But Jaddanbai said ‘no, and the shooting
had to be done in Mahabaleshwar, a small hill station near Bombay.

But clearlyjaddanbai could not stop her daughter getting in deeper and in Barsaat,
as Raj Kapoor ran out of money, it was Nargis who provided the funds, even selling
her gold bangles to fund the film, which was symbolically a huge act for an Indian
woman. Nargis even acted in other filnxs to raise money for R.K. Productions.
Jain, who calls it a post-independence Bombay love story, says, ‘ She was a parmer
alongside him at the helm of R.K. Films for much of their golden years together.
Nargis was Raj Kapoor’s friend, muse, parmer at work, actress, lover, and his love.”
In an interview Nargis gave Filmfare, in i 9 S 4 . she would say that her ideas had been
botded up before she met Raj Kapoor. He released them and she found that she had
“the same views and ideas, the same oudook on all subjects.

By now the inequalities between the two, so evident at the start of their
relationship, had disappeared both materially and intellectually. There had been
a great contrast in wealth when they had first met. Nargis could demand high
fees, while Raj was paid R.saoi a month by his father, a rupee more than what
Bombay Talkies paid him. Nargis was educated in a convent and read complex
novels. Raj Kapoor never read much beyond Archie comics, which he loved.
The relationship kept evolving from the start and by the time Awara was released
in 1951, which would take Raj Kapoor and Nargis, and Bollywood, to a new
level, it was clear Raj Kapoor was as great a star as Nargis, if not greater.

In 1950, Raj Kapoor expanded R.K. Films into a fully-fledged studio, opening
R.K. Studios at Chembur, about two and a half miles from his home. In the
Bombay of the 1950s this was a remote rural place, far from its centre in south
Bombay, and the very outskirts of the city.

Raj Kapoor had admired many a Hollywood director. He was taken by the
way Orson Wells used light and shade in Citizen Kane. His early films, Aag, Barsaat
and Awara were very much influenced by Vittorio De Sica in Miracle in Milan and
Bicycle Thief, and by Roberto Rossellini and Cesare Zavattini, the pioneers of the
neo-realism movement. Kapoor was taken by the scene in Bicycle Thief, where
the boy peddles and the father waits on the side of the road with his bicycle. In
1952, the year after Awara was released, an international film festival was held in
Bombay and some of these film-makers came to Bombay. Kapoor had a long
chat with Zavattini, who had written the screenplay for De Sica. He also spoke
for many hours to Frank Capra, whose work. It Happened one Night and Mr
Deeds Goes to Washington, had much impressed him. Kapoor was so affected by
Frank Capra that he would later admit that Capra had changed his art, infusing
it with the optimism that he saw in Capra’s It Happened One Night. “In many of
my films, it is the common man, the underdog, who ultimately manages to get
the best deal from life.” These film-makers, in particular the Italians, also told
Kapoor one other thing—to go and shoot outdoors. ‘The light is so wonderful
here in India, why shoot inside the studio.’Years later, this was also advice Shyam
Senegal, who has always preferred to shoot outside, would heed. Raj would draw
much inspiration from the Italian neo-realistic school.

However, one man who towered over all for Kapoor, and who was his mentor
for Awara, and all his other films, was Charlie Chaplin, Dev Anand described
how he and Kapoor went to see Chaplin in Montreux. As Oona played on the
piano, they talked for three hours, with Raj sitting on the ground in Chaplin’s
backyard, almost literally at his feet. They had come by bus and, as they boarded
the bus to leave, Anand says, “Raj kept looking back at the receding figure of
Chaplin, which got smaller and smaller. Raj raised his hand and shouted, ‘Hey,
little fellow, bye, bye. We love you.’

Kapoor, who had seen all the Chaplin movies: City Lights, Modern Times, Gold
Rush, and Dmelight, would later say, “What inspired me in his work was the little

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man and when I began my career then 1 saw the little man all around tn our

_the downtrodden, the man beaten for no fault of his own. What drew

me to Chaplin’s films were Chaplin himself; the hobo, the bum, the common
man. 1 was not drawn to him so much because of his get-up but because of the
simplicity—of the little man and his human emotions. How he enjoyed life, even
though he was so poor. There was so much of Chaplin that affected me, the
thought process behind aU of his beliefs. 1 think his hobo was one of the greatest
characters ever conceived.”

The very title Awara —vagabond, tramp—had strong echoes of Chaplin, as
did the character Raju, which Kapoor played in a very Indian version, with his
trousers rolled up, wearing torn shoes, and a trilby, which he doffed at everyone
who passed by. Raj moved his lips as Mukesh sang ‘Awara Hoon: I have no home,
no family, but 1 sing the song of your love, 1 am the victim of destiny and of your
love’. And the whole nation sang with him.

Kapoor saw the film as representing the innocence of the Republic, born just
a year before the film was released, and learning to cope with a difficult world.
Kapoor would later say;

Au'ura came at a time when films were of a totally different nature. We still had
remnants of British imperial dominance and wc wanted a new social order. 1 tried
to create a balance between entertainment and what 1 had to say to the people.
Awara had everything. It has the theme of class distinction. It had the greatest
juvenile romantic story wrapped in the poverty that the post-independence era had
inherited. It bloomed like a lotus in the mud and it went to people as something
they had never seen before. Could this ever happen to a young man in such
circumstances? With a song on his lips and a flower, he went through all the ordeals
that socio-econonuc disruptions could bring about.The change that people wanted
they saw in the sprit of the young man, who was the vagabond, the 'awara!

But, m the true traditions of the masala that Kapoor was fashioning, the story
was told in flashback from an initial court-room scene. The first shot was of the
Bombay High Court in a film which works at a myriad of levels. The wife of a
judge played by Leela Cbitnis, is abducted and she is rescued but on her return,
the judge discovers she is pregnant and egged on by his sister-in-law suspects
the child is not his but one of the abductors and throws her out of the house.
The child born is Raju, who does not know who his father is. The judge never
marries but soon looks after a young woman, played by Nargis, as his adopted
daughter, who it turns out later has been a childhood sweetheart of Raju and
whose father was a friend of the judge. At one stage, the father and the child
Raju meet, although they do not know each other at this stage.

Raju grows up to be a vagabond who meets the man who had abducted his
mother. He had done so in revenge against the judge, who had condemned him.

The Judge is a great believer in nature, in the hereditary principle that a man born
to thieves must become a thief. Now the thief watches as Raju grows up, taking
growing pleasure from the fact that a judge’s son has become a vagabond.

In the end, it all comes right as the character played by Nargis, who is a lawyer
and a modern educated Indian woman, defends Raju in front of his father and
in effect puts the judge in the dock.

Told this way, the story sounds horrendously complicated but Raj Kapoor
interspersed the narrative with songs in all sorts of situation and borrowed from all
cultures.There were songs on boats, songs in a vice den, songs using gypsy music,
songs using Latin American music, and trumpets, oboes, casatanets and folk songs
from various parts of India.There was also a much talked about nine-minute song
sequence Ghar aaya mera pardesi, which was shot on thirteen sets and remains a
landmark in terms of set designing. Kapoor was the quintessential showman.

The film also conveyed Kapoor’s attitude towards women and love, where the
man demanded complete and unconditional submission from the woman; what
critics called the ‘caveman concept of love.’ Kapoor admitted that this, and his
other films, were a hodge-podge of everything. But, justifying it, he said.‘‘I am
not making films for drawing-room conversation. 1 am making films to entertain
the millions of this country. So I have my music, I have my romanticism, beautiful
script and everybody is happy and God is great.”

It was the Marxist writer, Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, who had written the original
Awara story which was adopted for the screen by himself andV.P. Sathe. Herein lay
a paradox and a very sharp contrast with Hollywood. W^hen Abbas proposed the
idea to Raj Kapoor, Hollywood was in the middle of its McCarthy witch-hunt
against communism, which would see many of the leading lights of Hollywood
leave and which created a scare that took it some time to recover from.

^t in India, no such anti-Commumst feeling developed, chough, if anything, the
Indian National Congress, the party that had won freedom and ruled, could have
had every reason to target Communists. During the war, following Hitler’s attack
on the Soviet Union, the Indian Communists who had originallv opposed the war
as an imperialist war , now declared it was a "people’s war’, taking the Soviet line
and supporting the British rulers against the Congress. When Gandhi launched
The Quit India Movement in 1942, the Communists helped the British put it
down. Men like Subhas Bose, who had joined the Axis powers, were denounced
as traitors, and ruthlessly vilified in the Communist press as German and Japanese
puppets. One of Bose’s main agents in India, the Communist Bhagat Ram Taiwan
who was already supplying information to the Russians, went over to the British
and spied for them as well, setting up a unique record in the war of having spied
for the Italians, the Germans, as well as the Russians and the British,

After the war, the Communists were among the first of the Indian parties
outside the Muslim League to support the idea of Pakistan and, in 1946, launched
an armed revolt in Telangana. The initial revolt was against the rule of the Nizam,

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but after India won independence the revolt continued with the Communists
saying that the independent Indian Government of Nehru was a G-^^'ernment
of “national betrayal” and lelangana would be the Indian Yenan, where Mao
had launched his Communist uprising. It was not until 1950, after Stalin had
met the Indian Communist leaders in Moscow, that this armed struggle was
abandoned. The campaign much upset Nehru but there was no edict banning
the Communists. The Communists took part in the 1952 elections, and came
second although a long way behind Congress. And as far as Bollywood was
concerned, the Communists had nothing to fear. The IPTA flourished and
Abbas, and men like him, had a free rein.

One reason for this was that in the Bombay film world the main concern
was not so much communism, but communalism—the clashes between Hindus
and Muslims and, in this regard, the Communists were in the vanguard of the
movement to make sure that religion did not play a divisive role and secularism
ruled in the film world. In 1948, Kapoor had marched in a procession organised
by his father and others, on Gandhi’s birthday, to preach communal harmony.
Kapoor was no ideologue. His brother, Shashi Kapoor, has described him as
being very conservative, very Hindu, but wanting to be on the right side. The
right side in India in the 1950s was the left.

It is interesting to observe the impact that the release of the film made,
particularly abroad. The film was released in 1951, by which time the anti-
Communist McCarthy witch-hunt was at its height, having started in 1947, and
forcing people like Joseph Losey to flee Hollywood for London where he made
films under the name of Joseph Walton. In 1952, Elia Kazan who had been a
Communist, gave names to the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Yet in India the Communists, advised by Stalin, had given up their armed
struggle and Nehru was rebuffing American overtures to draw India into the
anti-Communist world. Back in 1949, Nehru, on a visit to America, had been
offered all the financial assistance he wanted for India but this would mean
playing the American tune in the fight against communism. This included
refusing to recognise China, where Mao had just won. America maintained the
fiction that Taiwan represented all of China for another twenty-two years. Nehru
refused and the divide between India and America was cemented when in 1952,
the election of Dwight Eisenhower as President brought John Foster Dulles as
Secretary of State, who proclaimed that ‘those who did not side with America
in the fight against communism were enemies of freedom.’ Nehru’s non-aligned
stance became very suspect and in 1953 India refused an alliance with America.
America soon made Pakistan its military ally in the region, and despite the fact
that over the years military dictators ruled Pakistan, America supported Pakistan
with arms against democratic India.

Nehru, who shared some of the upper-class English views about America,
which reflected his own English upbringing, wrote, “1 dishke more and more the

exchange of persons between America and India. The fewer persons that go from
India to America or that come from the United States to India, the better.” And to
a cabinet colleague he said, “We have had enough of American cultural values.”

One of the great American values was materialism and this distrust of materialism
was very marked in Awara, and in all of Kapoor’s other films. When Raju first went
to the house of Raghunath, he said, “Such a big house and it belongs to a judge,”
implying criticism of indecent wealth. Such an attitude would also mark other
film-makers of the period.YP. Sathe’s comments to Gyatri Chattegee implied that
Awara showed the Marxist undertone of the film. “First, there was the old order,
i.e. the feudal order; then the new order, i.e. the capitalist order. We wanted there
to be a third one, and Raj Kapoor was to represent this new order.”

Abbas and Sathe also worked in very clever references to the position of the
Communists, although the word was never used or explicitly stated and went
unnoticed. When Raju first meets the man, the dacoit who abducted his mother,
he speaks to him in English and then apologises. Raju, who by this time has
already been jailed, says “Dada, I’d met a political in the prison, so thought of
learning some English from him.” It is clear that four years after independence
this would not be Indians fighting the British but were Communists jailed for
their violent activities against the free Indian Government; the survivors of the
ill-fated Telengana movement. As one critic put it, “Abbas was the ideological
guide and Raj the faithful choreographer of dreams.”

Awara was not only a hit in India but a movie that now travelled the
world—Turkey, Iran, the Arabic world, and Eastern Europe—creating box office
records. Millions across the globe joined Indians in singing Mukesh’s song of
the Awara. But, in the United Sates, where Raj Kapoor and Nargis went as part
of an Indian film delegation, invited by the US State Department for an eight
city tour, the film made no impression. That visit threw a fascinating light on
how the biggest cinema industries interacted. Raj Kapoor and Nargis are seen
holding hands with President Harry Truman. The leading lights of the American
motion picture industry met them and exchanged handshakes, and token gifts
were given on such occasions. Ronald Regan, then president of the Actors
Guild, escorted Kapoor to a college football game between Rice University
of Texas and the University of Cahfornia. The visitors were introduced with a
card reproducing the flower of India and were addressed in Hindi, but nobody
sang ‘Main Awara Hoon.’ That came in the Soviet Union two years after this
American visit and was an indication of both the impact of Kapoor’s film and the
changing political situation. Stalin had died in 1953 - the old dictator had never
cared for India — but now, with the Soviet Union loosening up, Awara caused a
sensation. Abbas s Dharti Ka Lai, made in 1946, which dealt with the events of
the Bengal famine, had been shown in Moscow but created no particular stir.
Awara was different. Eric Barnouw and S. Krishnaswamy in their The Indian Film
describe what happened.

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The Soviet Union is said to have made a massive distribution of Awara, dubbed
into a number of its languages. Prints were even flown in to the Soviet Expeditions
near the North Pole.The Soviet distribution began in 1954, after Raj Kapoor, Nargis,
Abbas and the others had visited Moscow as members of a film delegation. On a
return visit to the USSR two years later, Raj Kapoor and Nargis were astonished to
find themselves well-known film personalities. Bands played Auwa Hun at airports.
Awara is reported to have been a favourite film ofMaoTseTong.

A Soviet film which won the Golden Peacock award in the Delhi Film
Festival, Farewell Green Summer, had some footage of the film. And one Ru.ssian
who never forgot Raj Kapoor was Boris Yeltzin, who would say “I was in love
with Raj Kapoor and 1 remember him even today.”

So extensive was the Awara influence that even Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s
Cancer Ward had a reference to it, with the character Zoya described as being
much taken by the film: “Suddenly, she flung out her arms, snapped the fingers of
both hands, her whole body writhing to the urge of the popular song she began
singing from a recent Indian film. A-m-rai-ya-ya! A-va-rai-ya-a-a!”

Oleg, who she sung to, is not amused, “No, don’t. Not that song. Zoya, please,”
Zoya explains it is from The Tramp. “Haven’t you seen it?” she asks. “Yes I have.
Isn’t it a wonderful movie? I saw it twice.” Zoya had actually seen it four times
but when she told Oleg that the “tramp’s life was rather like yours,” Oleg was
not amused and made bitter criticism of the Raj Kapoor character in the film,
and all that he represented, calling him “ a typical grafter, a hood.”

Oleg’s view of the Kapoor character may or may not be valid, but that the
film could find such echoes shows Raj Kapoor’s ability to appeal beyond his own
culture to many, and varied, other cultures, and also to represent what the Indians
call ‘the common man.’ Kapoor liked to keep in touch with the common man,
a much-used Indian phrase, striking up friendships with ordinary workers in
restaurants near his studio which, in hierarchical India, was quite revolutionary.

Kapoor would later say this film was his “little contribution to the USSR-
India friendship” and it marked a remarkable honeymoon between the world’s
biggest democracy and the world’s most entrenched dictatorship. Pankaj Mishra
has written how even as late as the 1980s, this Indo-Soviet friendship blossomed
and the Indian intellectual class certainly shunned America and saw the Soviet
Union as the ideal society. The scales have fallen since the collapse of the Berlin
Wall in 1989, but there remained a strain in the Indo-US relationship which only
began to be modified with the increasing migration of middle-class Indians to
America, and the creation of the well-off Indian Diaspora there.

By the time Raj Kapoor was being feted in Moscow, he was on his way to
making the film which Satyajit Ray considered his best, Shri 420. The title itself
was a Raj Kapoor joke. 420 is the number of the penal code which deals with
petty crime and to call someone a ‘420’ in India is shorthand for ‘a cheat,’ if at

times in jest. Raj Kapoor plays a character again called Raju, again the tramp
but this time a tramp who is educated, who is dazzled by money and wealth but,
then, brought back to the ways of the real, poor, people by Nargis. 420 got so
associated with Raj Kapoor that in later years even his employees at R.K. Studio
called him ‘a 420.’

This film also displayed his nationalism in songs like 'Mera joota hai Japani’
where, starting with his Japanese shoes, he shows how he is wearing everything
made abroad except for his heart, which remains Indian.

There is a photograph of Nargis and Raj Kapoor taken in Russia where Raj
Kapoor is in a suit, about to Hght a cigarette. Nargis is in a white sari and the pair
appear to be a couple. Indeed, in Russia, Nargis was known as Mrs Raj Kapoor.
However, the success in Moscow would also mark the beginning of the end of their
relationship, with Nargis realising he would never marry her. By this time, almost five
years had passed since Nargis had thought she and Raj would get married.

Marriage ideas had started way back on New Year’s Eve, 1949. Barsaat, having
been a huge success, Raj and Nargis had gone to a temple and Raj had tied the
mangalsutra that Hindu men tie round their wife’s wrist, the Hindi equivalent of
the wedding ring. Nargis’s biographer described how a deliriously happy Nargis
rang Letticia, her friend, and screamed, “I’m in love with that man!” Letticia
would later say, “I’ll never forget that beautiful unearthly laughter. It lasted
twenty minutes. She was so deliriously happy.”

Later, she would persuade Letticia to accompany her to Moraiji Desai,Bombay’s
Home Minister. Letticia described what happened to Bunny Reuben:

“We both went to Congress House. Nargis was very nervous.There was this huge
table and Moraqibhai was seated behind it, looking very stern and serious. ‘What
is it?’ he asked. Nargis was tongue-tied and I said. 'Sir, she wants to talk about
something important to you.’ Suddenly the tongue-tied Nargis blurted it out,‘Sir,

I want to marry Raj Kapoor.’ Morajibhai put his pen down and said, “What! Don’t
you know the law? How dare you! Don’t you dare come and ask me this again!
Now both of you—please go.”

And we were unceremoniously bundled out of the office.

Reuben does not give the date of this story. But it must have taken place some
time in 1955, after the Hindu Marriage Act banning polygamy amongst Hindus
had become law. Of course, had Raj Kapoor decided to convert to Nargis’s
religion then he could have taken her as his second wife, but that thought did
not appear to have entered his head.

Kapoor had always used his family in his movies. In Awara, the judge was
played by Prithviraj, the young Raj by his brother, Shashi, and the little boy
shown in the tide sequence, was Rishi, his own boy. In Shri 420, his children
played an even more significant part. In the famous scene where he and Nargis

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sing a song while sharing an umbrella as it pours down in Bombay, three children,
all dressed in raincoats and gumboots, walk past. Raj Kapoor had arranged for
them to miss school in order to take the shot. They got to keep the raincoats
and gumboots as presents and he would later tell a friend that the three little
Kapoors would be the children he and Nargis could have had. For good measure,
the children were taken to lunch at Nanking, then one of Bombay’s most select
Chinese restaurants, and a big treat as Chinese restaurants have also been very
popular in India.The children were accompanied by their father, and the woman
who could not be their mother.

Between 1948 and 1956, Raj Kapoor and Nargis made sixteen films together,
including their last, Chori Chori. Nargis played major roles in all these films. In
this time, Nargis had refused all films opposite Dilip Kumar, the other actor with
whom she had made a successful team, and also the female lead in Aan offered by
her mentor, Mehboob Khan. Although her roles in the Kapoor films were always
strong and noteworthy the hard-nosed lawyer in Award who defends her
vagabond lover in a predominantly male courtroom, and the teacher in Shri 420,
who acts as the wayward hero’s conscience keeper, by the middle 1950s Nargis
was being told by her brothers, and a coterie around them, that Raj Kapoor had
used her to became a star.

The Raj-Nargis relationship was framed by Raj Kapoor’s own sexual
upbringing and strong memories of childhood, which never left him. Awareness
of sex had come early to Raj Kapoor and in a curious way. Once, when quite
young, his family had returned to the village in LyaUpur, where his father was
born. “An earthen oven was always kept lit in the centre of the village and
women roasted channa on the fire. I remember having gone to buy channa,
wearing a shirt and nothing under it. The woman at the oven had an odd smile
on her face and said You don t have to pay for the channa; just raise your shirt
and make a bowl out of it. I did, and stood like that, and she laughed her head
off, looking at me. I was totally innocent. Years later when this memory came
back to me and I understood the trick she must have been up to, it disturbed me
a great deal. For some time in my life channa itself became a sex object.’ Kapoor
later used this memory to construct a scene in his film, Bobby, made 101973.

But, there were also other compulsions which some have argued are part
of the Indian male psyche. There is a scene in Awara where Nargis is seen in
a swimsuit, much too daring for Indian audiences. The character Raj Kapoor
plays in the film upsets her and she calls him ‘a junglee/ meaning a person from
the jungle and Raj Kapoor slaps her repeatedly. Rita, the name of the character
played by Nargis, falls to her knees and asks his forgiveness. Indian film historians
have debated long and hard about what this means, with Gayatri Chatteijee, in
her book Awara, suggesting it represented the Indian male desire to get women
to go down on their knees to plead for protection and upkeep, and for love.

During their first visit to Moscow, Raj Kapoor and Nargis had behaved like

a couple. Dev Anand v.^as part of that delegation. Later, Anand recalled that,
“Kapoor and Nargis were in the same room.Whenever we went anywhere they
would play Awara boon on the piano. Sometimes, he would drink too much and
had to be pulled out of the bedroom; we would all be waiting for him, and then
Nargis would rush off and try to bring him down.”

But, on a return visit to Moscow, and perhaps convinced by now by her
brothers, Nargis felt marginalised and, this time, while Raj Kapoor was treated
like a pop star, girls mobbing him, his shirts being torn, Nargis decided to
suddenly leave Moscow and return to India.

Back in India there followed what Raj Kapoor would later term,‘betrayals’.The
most dramatic moment came while they were in Madras, shooting Chori, Chori, a
film for a south Indian producer in 1955, a remake of It Happened One M^/it.They
w'ere due to go to a party when Raj Kapoor spotted a paper in Nargis’s hand.
Nargis claimed it was nothing and tore it up. Raj Kapoor later retrieved it and it
was a marriage proposal from a producer. He put the letter together, framed it and
it formed an incident in the film he would make a decade later, Sangam.

This was followed by yet another ‘betrayal.’ Kapoor had received the rights for
Phagun, a story by Rajinder Singh Bedi, where Nargis would have to play an older
woman. She refused the role, saying it would spoil her image but, unknown to Raj
Kapoor, she had been approached by Mehboob Khan to play in Mother India ,where
she would, during the film, go from a young woman to a much older woman.

The parting was very like a Raj Kapoor script. Nargis had already signed up
for Mother India. The shooting had started in BiUimoria, the ancestral village of
Mehboob Khan. Raj Kapoor heard about this and also rumours of a romance
between her and Sunil Dutt, who was playing her son in the film. Unable to
bear it any longer, one night he drove to Letticia’s house but she knew nothing
as Nargis had kept her in the dark. Then Nargis returned from BiUimoria and
the two women drove out to R.K. Studios. According to Bunny Reuben, while
Nargis still did not say anything, Raj Kapoor told Letticia, “See, you wouldn’t
tell me but it’s written all over her face.” Nargis still refused to put Raj Kapoor
out of his misery and the two women drove back to south Bombay in silence.
In the car, Letticia said, “Can’t you stop the rumours?” “What can I do?” asked
Nargis. “If it’s there, it is there.” “But you cannot go back to R.K. Studios?” “No,
1 am not going back to R.K. Studios.”

But while Nargis did not return, her driver did. Nargis had her own room
at the studio and there she had left personal things. Twenty years later, in 1974,
Raj Kapoor would tell Suresh Koli, then chief editor of Sterling Publishers, that
the driver said “Baby has asked for her heel ke sandals (high heel sandals). I said
le jaiye—take it. The driver came again, this time for baaja [harmonica]. I then
realised it was all over.” Heels, bajja, and Sunil Dutt was six feet tail. Raj Kapoor,
much shorter, had to bow to a taller, younger man and soon after the shooting
of Mother India finished, Nargis and Sunil Dutt were married.

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The greatest romance in Bollywood—in all of Indian cinema—had ended.
Raj Kapoor would go on for another thirty years, making films and becoming
a legend, and the film that Nargis had secretly gone off to make would became
the greatest ever film of India cinema, Bollywoods Gone with the Wind.

And since sentiment always pays such a big part in Indian life there is, perhaps
appropriately, an on-screen sentimental scene to indicate when this remarkable
cinematic and personal relationship ended. It was the last scene of Jaagte Raho, a
1956 film, in which Raj Kapoor plays a thirsty man searching for a drink of water
during a hot Calcutta night. In the last scene Nargis makes a symbolic guest
appearance and offers him water. She had not wanted to play the part and this
scene has been accepted as her screen farewell. Needless to say, the film flopped,
with the audience now aware that the pair were no longer together, unable to
believe that they could be lovers on screen.

Interestingly, while the movie was being made Nargis was quite in command
at R.K. Studios. Nargis ,who was always somewhat bossy at the studio, behaving
as if she was a surrogate director, certainly acted as a director in the making of
this film and gave instructions to the lighting people.

Her break with Kapoor came because clearly she wanted to take charge of
her life and she now had the opportunity to do so. Raj Kapoor, after weeping
copiously and also getting very drunk, found other heroines to try and replace
Nargis. He dressed them in white and found them in the south, starting the
tradition of the southern belle in Bollywood. In Moscow, Padmini, a southern
actress nursed him after Nargis left and he had caught a cold, and soon there
were other southern actresses at R.K. Studios.

Although Jaat.’te Raho had failed with Indian audiences, it did win Raj Kapoor
a major international honour at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. But this would
have a consequence for Raj Kapoor, producing a breach with another great
Indian film-maker.

While Raj Kapoor was becoming the first Bollywood superstar and reaching
out to millions around the world, there was another Indian who would make
an even greater impact on the world of cinema, what many would call the
real cinema, as opposed to the tinsel town of Bollywood. That was Satyajit
Ray, now these great men of Indian cinema fell out badly. As it happened,
the quarrel took place outside India, when both were being feted for their
movies.

Benegal takes up the story.

The Bombay film industry always thought that Ray was not doing right by India.

Raj Kapoor and he had a big spat once. Raj Kapoor’s f\]m, Jaagte Raho, directed by
Shambu Mitra, a famous Bengali theatre director who had the same stature as Ray
in cinema. Shambu made the film and it won Raj Kapoor an award in the 1964
Karolvy Vary film festival, the same year that Aparajito won the Golden Lion in

Venice. Thev met up at some meeting where both were being felicitated. So Ray
said It was a great recognition for Bengali cinema.

Raj Kapoor said,‘Why Bengali, are you not an Indian? Why do you say you are a
Bengali film-maker?’

Ray said,‘I am a Bengali film-maker.’

Raj Kapoor said,‘Why can’t you say you are an Indian film-maker? For gods sake.
That was the spat. At that time,young Indians were encouraged to say that you were
an Indian, not Bengali or Maharastrian or any other region.

Nargis later said in Parliament that Ray was peddling poverty. Father Panchali,
Ray’s first film, which made his world-wide reputation, was presenting India in
a poor light.

The two men represented not only very different cinematic traditions, but also
very different ways of looking at life, and what it meant to be Indian. Ray was
the last great product of the Bengali renaissance that in the nineteenth century,
seeking to assimilate the best of British influence, had sought to revitalise a dying
Indian culture. Bengal had led the national movement both for renewal and then
freedom from the British. As a child, Raj would have been told What Bengal
thinks today, India thinks tomorrow.” But, by 1947 - after a decade of suffering
and the partition of Bengal, Sardar Patel could mock Bengal, saying, Bengal
knows only how to cry.” Raj Kapoor did not think that but he reflected a very
different Indian culture, where to be identified as a regional person was not a
badge of honour, but a sign of lack of patriotism and proof that the person was
not really Indian.

The divide between these great men of Indian cinema would never he
bridged.

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Bollywood's Classic Era

In 1957, Mehboob Kban released Mother India, and in i960, Karimuddin Asif
released Muj^hal-e Azam. Before and during tbis period there were other films
made by some of Bollywood’s greatest directors—those films were and remain
classics—but these two films in many ways are the two most important films of
what is often called the ‘golden era of Bollywood’.

The two films could not be more different on first inspection. Mother India
was made by a man who was barely literate, and whose production company
had the logo of a hammer and sickle on which the first letter of his own name
was imposed, although the accompanying audio message spoke of the eternal
power of God. The film was very much an on-message film for the India of the
1950S. As we have seen, it was a story of the terrible suffering of Indian peasants
exemplified by a stoic mother who ends up killing her beloved son.

Three years later, Mughal-e Azam, took us back to the sixteenth century and
the court of the Mughal Emperor Akbar and, while it was historically dubious,
with more historical costume drama, the setting was opulent and the film itself
was quite breathtaking to watch, with the songs having echoed down through
the decades.

Yet in many ways, both films were similar. There was the similarity m that
both directors were Muslims although, interestingly, Mehboob Khan was more
often known by his first name and, with time, Asif’s first name, Karimuddin,
was almost entirely forgotten, and he was known only as Asif. But the religious
similarity was rather a simple one, and hardly exceptional for Bollywood. By this
time, Bollywood had long created an India that was very different to the real
India outside. Here, none of the bitterness and divide between the two great
religious communities, that only a decade earlier had led to the partition of the
land, applied. In the India of Bollywood, Hindus fell in love with Muslims and
even married them, as it was quite common for Muslim actors and actresses
to play Hindu characters. In the film. Ram Rajya, the only film Gandhi was
supposed to have seen, which tells the story of the great Hindu god Ram, who

had come to earth as the perfect human being, it was a Muslim who played Ram,
while a Hindu played the demon Ravana who wanted to destroy him. In that
sense, Mughal-e Azam was only noteworthy for being the only film where Dilip
Kumar played a Muslim in a film. In all his other film roles, which numbered
more than sixty-five Kumar, who was brought up as a devout Muslim, which he
remained all his life, always played Hindu roles. Dilip Kumar himself was part of
this cinematic religious reversal when in a 1981 film, Kranti, he played the Hindi,
while Shatrughan Sinha, who later became a politician,joining the BJP, a staunch
Hindu party, played the Muslim.

But what made these two movies outstanding, were the messages they sent
and the way that they finally came to the screen illustrating how, through the
1950S and early 1960s, the BoUywood that we know now was in its genesis.These
two films were both telling the story of India, one projecting the new India that
was being built from its feudal, oppressive past, while the other drew on the past
to sustain a more tolerant India. Mother India was about the future of India. 1957
was a time when India was in the middle of its second five-year plan, which was
very much a copy of the Soviet style of planning. But this planning also came
combined with a Western-styled democracy. In 1957, the country also held its
second general election.

Mehboob’s film was overladen with symbols of modern India—Nehru’s
India. Indeed, the very first scene in the film shows men wearing the clothing
that signified the uniform of Nehru’s Congress party, escorting the mother to
inaugurate the arrival of an irrigation canal in the village; just the sort of progress
Nehru was seeking to make as India, finally, took the road towards industrialisation.
The story is told in flashback, as the mother recalls her terrible past, but the film
ends in hope, as much-needed water finally comes to the village.

Mughal-e Azam was a tragic love story between a prince and a dancing girl
and a fight with his father over this, the father being the Mughal Emperor who
not only married a Hindu wife but allowed her to perform her Hindi rituals in
the harem. It was the son of this Hindu wife who succeeded him on the Mughal
throne of India.

The other major common note for both films was that both were a long time
in the making, which showed the problems of film-making in India. Mehboob
may have been one of the great directors of India but he made the film
against the background of the star system, taking over from the previous studio
system, and both films were heavily influenced by one of the greatest stars of
Bollywood—Dilip Kumar. In Asif’s film, he played the lead role of Prince Salim,
the rebellious prince, while in Mother India he could have played the lead role
of the rebellious son, Biiju but, in the end, did not. Despite this, he influenced
the making of the film.The result was that both films, Mughal-e Azam more than
Mother India, had a changing cast list, changes which kept being made before the
final version was settled.

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The making of Mughal-eAzam was an Indian version of Waitingjor Godot. My
childhood growing up in the Bombay of the 1950s and 1960s was dominated by
the stories of how Mughal-e Azam was constantly being made. Every year, starting
around 1951, we were told Asif’s picture would emerge. It finally did in i960,
after Asif had been tormented by rivals who got in earlier. Seven years before he
finally completed his movie, and as Asif struggled to find the money and replace
actors who had died, or were no longer star material, he was mortified to find
a movie with exactly the same storyline. What was worse, the movie had very
catchy songs that became big hits. By the time Asif finally released his movie, it
was twenty years after he had first conceived it and with a cast so totally different,
that the man who was to be his first hero was long dead.

Mehboob Khan did not take quite that long to make Mother India although,
like Asif, he had conceived of the idea for the movie nearly twenty years before
the final print was ready and he had even had a trial run of the theme in an
earlier version, some eight years before. But, in a sense. Mother India was the
movie Mehboob Khan was destined to make ever since he was a child, growing
up in a little village. Barely able to read, he was lured by movies and by Bombay
itself.

Mehboob Ramzan Khan was born in a poor Muslim family in Billimoria.
So little is known of his childhood that Gayatri Chattegee, who wrote a book
about Mother India, with the active help of his family, could not give us his birth
date. She merely mentions that he was “born in the first decade of the twentieth
century.” Wikipedia, the internet encyclopaedia, says he was born in 1907, but
does not mention the precise date. Billimoria then was part of the princely state
of Baroda and Mehboob’s father, who had been in the army of that princely
state, was rather better known in his village as ‘the ghode-nal Khan,’ the man
who fixed horseshoes. The family was very religious. Mehboob’s middle name
meant ‘prayer’ in Urdu, and Mehboob said his prayers five times a day, as a devout
Muslim is required to do. He was also, as is the custom, married off at an early
age to a girl called Fatima, and eventually produced a son.

Mehboob could not have had much of a formal education in the village. He
could just about read in his mother tongue, Gujarati, but was helped by a guard
who worked on the railway line between Baroda and Bombay to travel to the
big city. In his early years, he appears to have slept on the benches outside Grant
Road station. The story of villagers coming to Bombay looking for gold — the
city is known as ‘the city of gold’ — is an old one and one that resonates to this
day. In the case of Mehboob, there was not only work but glory to be found,
although it would take time.

Curiously, in his first film, he did find a vat, not of gold, but of wood, where
he was hidden as a thief in the 1927 Alibaba and the Forty Thieves, a silent film
made by Ardeshir Irani’s Imperial Film. Much later, after he had achieved success,
he would wonder how he contributed to the film, as he was hidden in the vat.

However, he never forgot the experience. Eleven years later, now a director,
when he himself had made Alibaba, he returned to the studio and shot the first
scene of the movie there.

In the years between 1927 and 1940, Mehboob tried hard to make it as an
actor but did not get a part in Irani’s Alam Ara, which considerably upset him.
Transferring to Sagar, he did play the lead in The Romantic Hero, made in 1931
but, then, according to Chattegee, the death of his father, which made him the
breadwinner, forced him into directing.

His directorial debut came in 1935, with Al Hilal Judgement of Allah, inspired
by Cecil B. DeMiUe’s 1932 Sign of the Cross. The DeMille film was set in Nero’s
time, with Charles Laughton playing an implicitly gay Nero and had the
DeMiUe formula of sex, violence and spectacle presented in the guise of culture
and morality. Mehboob, catering to Indian taste, did not have much sex in the
film. DeMille had shown Claudete Colbert bathing up to her nipples in milk.
Instead, Mehboob had a Roman Emperor, Caesar, attack a Muslim ruler and
suffer defeat. The many battle scenes and natural catastrophes depicted proved
quite popular. It was shot by Faredoon Irani, who became a Mehboob regular
and photographed every film that followed. Irani and he would fall out socially,
but their work was never interrupted.

The film also featured Sitara Devi, the Kathak dancer, who hailed from Nepal.
Manto describes her as, “a woman who is born once in a hundred years” not
so much a woman, but a typhoon, who swept many men along, including
Mehboob. The film involved shooting outdoors in Hyderabad, and Manto
writes, “Mehboob would offer his prayers with the greatest devotion and make
love to her with the same single-minded enthusiasm.” Sitara went through
various lovers, including Nazir, the uncle of K. Asif, and then Asif himself.

It was in 1937, having made two other films, Manmohan in 936, inspired by
Barua’s Devdas, and Jagirdar m 1937, that Mehboob first got the idea of Mother
India. It was inspired by seeing the film. The Good Earth, based on a novel by
Pearl Buck, then a widely-read American writer who had won the Nobel Prize
for literature. Mehboob, says Chatteijee, was diverted by his friend Babubhai
Mehta who, unlike Mehboob, was a well-read man. Mehta told Mehboob to
consider another Buck novel. The Mother, which dealt with the life of a Chinese
woman. But, before he turned to that subject, Mehboob indicated his growing
social awareness and political leanings in the 1939 film, Ek hi Raasta, a significant
title as it meant ‘the only road.’ It was about a war veteran who, trying to cope
with the effects of war, is charged with killing a rapist and is brought to trial.
At the trial he raises questions about a system that made him a war hero yet
condemns him for killing a criminal.

By the time Sagar had collapsed, Mehboob was part of National Studios, set
up by some Sagar people and backed by the Tatas. The Tatas by now were one
of India’s biggest business houses, founded by the man who, having been turned

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away from Watsons, in the early days of the cinema, decided to open the Taj
Mahal Hotel. It was for National that Mehboob made Aurat (Woman), in 1940.
In any discussion of Mehboob, Aurat is seen as the seminal movie and is clearly a
forerunner for Mother India. It highlighted a peasant’s love for his land.

This was a story of a young woman who starts life full of hope and dreams
but ends up old and care-worn, having survived flood, famine, starvation and a
wayward son, whom she shoots to protect the honour of the village. Mother India
was to be a very similar stor\- and many critics are of the opinion that Aurat was
much more realistic and had an earthiness that Mother India lacked.

Aurat was also to have a devastating effect on Mehboob’s personal life. As with
his first film, he again fell in love with Aurat’s leading lady, Sardar Akthar, but with
more long-term consequences. She had given an intuitive performance in the
film which was much praised and, of course, she was very unhke his first wife,
Fatima. Her sister was married to Kardar, a fellow director at Sagar, which meant
that, by marrying her, Mehboob became part of the small incestuous world of
Bombay films. Akthar was a woman who could be by his side as he tried to
become the Cecil DeMille of India, his great ambition. In later years, she would
accompany him on his foreign travels. By this time, Fatima had produced three
sons and three daughters but Mehboob was not planning to divorce his wife as in
those days polygamy was permissible for men of all religions in India. Mehboob,
as a Muslim, had also the support of his religion, which allowed him four wives.
It is an interesting paradox of Mehboob’s life that while in his films, such as Aurat
and Mother India, he liked portraying strong women who had to come to the
rescue of weak men to protect their family, in his personal life he could play the
strong man who dominated the weaker sex.

This, however, did not go down well with Faredoon Irani who was outraged.
In the Indian way of working, Irani was now very much part of Mehboob s
family and he refused to talk to Mehboob but continued working with him.
When he had to say something during shooting, he spoke to others, who then
spoke to Mehboob. How long this quarrel lasted is not clear, for two years later,
in 1943, Mehboob started Mehboob Productions, with Irani becoming the
director of the company.

Irani and Mehboob always had a combustible relationship. In 1949, when
Mehboob signed Dilip Kumar for Andaz, Irani watched quietly as Dilip Kumar
came to the studio on the first day for costume fittings.Then, as Mehboob later
recalled, Irani, “asked innocently ‘Who is this monkeyf ” and was aghast when
told he was my choice for a leading role in Andaz."

This must be balanced against the fact that Mehboob himself had been
dismissive of Dilip Kumar when he heard he had been chosen for the film
Milan, the film that kick-started Dilip Kumar’s career, after a disastrous launch.
Mehboob chided Hiten Chowdhury, the director, for taking him on saying, “You
should have taken a name star. This lad doesn’t impress me.”

Before Mehboob set out on his own, he produced two more films for
National: Bahen in 1941, which was about a brother’s obsessive love for his little
sister, and Roti in 1942, where Mehboob showed the first real signs of his growing
belief that capitalism could not work and that real people could only be found in
villages. Set in a fictional land where there is no money and people barter things,
Mehboob contrasted city people who only valued money, against tribes who
lived by barter. In the end, the rich city type, played by the actor Chandramohan,
is shown dying in the desert. His car is full of gold ingots but he dies of thirst
representing the classic, perhaps cliched argument, that for aU the gold in the
world, it does not help you get water in the desert.

Soon Chandramohan was to provide a fink with Asif and Mughal-e Azam.
Although only thirty-seven, he was then one of the rising stars of the screen
and his portrayal in this and other films was so effective that three years later,
in 1945, as Asif first began to think of making Mughal-e Azam he signed up
Chandramohan to play Emperor Akbar. According to Naushad, Asif also signed
up “Nargis, Sapau & Mubarak in the lead roles; the film was being financed by
Shiraz Ali Hakim and was being shot in black and white at the Bombay Talkies.”
As we shall see, it was the first of many twists and turns in the Mughal-e Azam
saga.

A year after Roti, Mehboob Productions was up and running; the hammer
and sickle had been chosen for the company’s emblem although Mehboob never
joined the Communist Party. The initial offerings were not remarkable, except
for the 1946 Anmol Ghadi, which had three singing stars together—Surendra,
Nur Jehan and Suraiya—proving how important it still was for actors and
actresses to sing. The film was also notable for the partnership between music
composers, Naushad and Mehboob. He, like Faredoon behind the camera, was
now to become a constant of Mehboob’s films.

Naushad had to work just as hard as Mehboob to establish himself. Born
Naushad Ali in Lucknow, where he was heavily influenced by Indian classical
music, his early years in Bombay had been similar to Mehboob, scrounging for
work and even spending some nights sleeping on the city’s pavements.Years later,
when one of his films premiered at a Bombay cinema, his fellow Bollywood stars
were surprised to find him weeping. He explained he had slept on the pavement
opposite the cinema when he first came to the city.

He worked as a pianist in composer Mushtaq Hussain’s orchestra and got his
chance to emerge as a music director when the classical musician, Zhande Khan,
found it distasteful to compose light tunes. While working with Zhande Khan,
Naushad impressed a Russian director by composing a simple light tune, which
was beyond Zhande Khan’s work and was promoted to the position of music
director. Through the early 1940s, he began to compose music for films but it
was his music for Rattan, in 1944, that would stamp him as one of the great
music directors of his generation. After Rattan, Naushad could charge as much

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as Rs25,ooo per film, huge money m India in the 1940s, and the songs from the
movie would be endlessly copied in films such as Devdas, a decade later. They
proved such a success that the disc royalties from Rattan would eventually bring
in more money than the entire film.

Naushad had worked for Kardar so, working for Mehboob, was keeping it in
the family, although their partnership began on rocky terms. As Naushad later
recalled to Raju Bharatan:

When I recorded my first song for Mehboob s Anmol Chadi, he asked Nooijehan
[her name can also be spelt as Nur Jehan and is spelt in that fashion in Pakistan] to
change a note here, a stress there—he was the boss. The next day I purposely went
onto the sets as the song was picturised. Mehboob welcomed me saying, ‘Look!
your song’s being taken.’‘May I see it through the camera?’ I asked. I peered through
and, greatly daring, asked him to move this table left, that chair right. Mehboob
caught me by the ear and said,‘Who do think you are? Scram! this is not your job.
Your job is music; direction is my job.’ I said that was the very admission I wanted
from him—that his job was direction, not music! Mehboob’s answer was shown by
his never again entering my music room and I did aU his fdms unfettered.

Their partnership, however, was threatened by partition when Mehboob was
drawn to making his home in Pakistan. Several had gone, including Rizvi, his
wife, Nur Jehan and, with Pakistan advertised as a land created for Muslims, it
must have looked very alluring. Mehboob and his brother-in-law, Kardar, with
their respective wives, headed across the border. We do not know why it did
not work out. Mehboob’s biographer. Bunny Reuben, says, “After a while, both
Mehboob Khan and A.R. Kardar returned quietly. For reasons best known to
themselves, they preferred to remain on the side of the border where they had
been born.” Perhaps they had a premonition. Most of the Muslims who went
to the new state vanished without trace, with the exception of Nur Jehan.
Mehboob returned to find his studio had been declared evacuee property. This
happened the moment Mehboob left India. But, with the help of Baburao
Patel, who owned the influential magazine Filmindia, Mehboob managed to
get it back. Patel lived next door to the ICS official who was the Custodian
of Evacuee Property. Later Mehboob, with Patel’s contacts with people in high
places, also converted the land around the studio from residential to commercial
use, allowing for further development.

The effect of partition in some ways had a more devastating effect on Asif and
his plans to make Mughal-e Azam. Asif, fourteen years younger than Mehboob,
had just made his first film when partition came. Like Mehboob, he was a
migrant to Bombay, having arrived some time in the early 1940s. But, unlike
Mehboob, he had connections—his uncle Nazir was well-established in Bombay
as an actor. Keen as Asif was to make it into films, Nazir was not, and initially set

him up with a tailoring shop. But Asif, calling himself‘a ladies tailor’, was soon
keener on the ladies, rather than making dresses for them, with the result that
Nazir closed the shop down and introduced him to films. What Nazir was soon
to realise was that his nephew’s roving eye extended to his own mistress, Sitara,
although to be fair this was more a case of Sitara targeting Asif; as Manto puts it,
“she fed on young men like Asif.” Although she had taken up with Nazir after
his previous mistress, the Jewish actress, Yasmin, had left, she had never believed
in one lover at a time and, even before Asif, was carrying on affairs with a fair
bit of the Bombay film world, including Mehboob. For good measure, she was
also married to a hapless Mr Desai.

Soon, in a tale that would have made an ideal movie, she was double- crossing
Nazir with his nephew. Manto says the uncle even caught them “flagrante delicto!’
At one stage, Asif suddenly disappeared from Bombay to Delhi where he was
rumoured to have married Sitara in a Muslim ceremony and converted her to
Islam with a new name. Begum K.Asif. But, when Manto asked Asif, having met
Asif and Sitara at the Bombay racecourse, he replied, “What ceremony? What
marriage?”

But whether he got married or not, in Delhi he found the money to venture
into movies, after having secured financing from a Hindu businessman called
Lala Jagat Narayan.This was to lead to his first film, directing Phool for producer
Seth Shiraz Ali Hakim, who ran the amous Cine Laboratories. It is not clear
who wrote the story but Manto has a brilliant description of Asif narrating the
story to him:

I had never heard him tell a story and it was quite an experience. He roUed up the
sleeves of his silk shirt, loosened his belt, pulled up his legs and assumed the classic
posture of a yogi.‘Now listen to the story. It is called PAoo/. What do you think of
the name?’‘It is good,’ I replied.‘Thank you, I will narrate it scene by scene...’ he
said. Then he began to speak in his typical manner. I do not know who was the
author but Asif was playing all the characters, raising his voice, moving around aU
the time. Now he would be on the sofa, the next minute his back would be against
the waU, then he would push his legs against it and his upper torso would be on the
floor. At times, he would jump from the sofa on to the floor, only to climb onto
a chair in the next minute. Then he would stand up straight, looking like a leader
asking for votes in an election. It was a long story, like the intestine of the devil, as
the expression goes. After he finished his narration we were silent for a few minutes.
‘What do you think about it?’Asif asked.‘It is trash,’ I replied.

Manto, who had been paid a fee of RS500 to hsten to the narration, suggested
changes which were accepted and Manto identifies this as one of the great qualities
in Asif. An intelligent man, with a great deal of self-confidence, he did not, as
a director surround himself with a small coterie but “invited a cross-section of

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people to advise him, never hesitating to accept a good suggestion or idea.”

It was after Phool that Asif began to think of making Mughal-e Azam, although
it was not yet called by that name. There had been an Urdu drama called
Anarkali, about the doomed love affair between Salim, the son of Akbar, and a
dancer called Anarkali. There is no historical basis to this story, but Imitiaz Ali
Taj, back in the 1920s, had written a plausible story, and there had even been a
silent movie made in 1928. Asif got him involved, and also got Kamal Amrohi
to write the script. Not happy with the script, he asked Manto for advice and
everything seemed to go well.Then two things intervened. Chandramohan died,
which meant Asif had to look for a new Akbar.

More crucially, following partition, Shiraz Ali Hakim felt he might not be
welcomed in India. Some time before partition, at a public meeting, he had
felicitated Jinnah and, as Jinnah was now being demonised in India, he decided
Pakistan was safer. He sold his studios and Asif s first Mughal-e Azam project came
to a shuddering halt. Interestingly, while his uncle Nazir left for Pakistan, Asif did
not, and opted for India, while planning for a resumption of Mughal-e Azam.

Meanwhile, Mehboob had retuned to India, determined to at last become
the great director he believed he was destined to be. In 1949, he produced and
directed Andaz. The film is notable for all sorts of cinematic firsts in Bollywood.
For the first time, Naushad was joined by Lata Mangeshkar; Lata sang for Nargis,
while Mukesh sang for the men (although Dilip Kumar, who could sing, did sing
many years later in the film, Musafir, but insisted he be accompanied by Lata).
With Saigal dead, and Nur Jehan in Pakistan, the era of actors and actresses who
had to sing was gone and from now on it was all playback si.nging. And, for the
first and only time, Nargis, Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor appeared together on
the screen.

The film, as we have seen, is the classic love triangle and stamped Mehboob
as one of the great directors of India. The film so dazzled Indians that Lord
Meghnad Desai, who wrote a biography of Dilip Kumar, says he saw it in excess
of fifteen times. Desai recalls the film being released in the newly-constructed,
air-conditioned Liberty cinema of south Bombay, making the first dent in
the social apartheid where only English language films were watched in such
comfort, while Hindi ones were more often shown in rat-infested cinemas.
It ran for twenty-eight weeks, collecting seven lakhs, Rs700,ooo, a colossal
sum of money in 1949 India. Sanjit Narwekar, a film-maker and historian has
described it, “as a dark moralistic tale of what happens when the permissiveness
of a western lifestyle is allowed to impinge on what is considered to be Indian
culture.” It also had what would be a recurring Mehboob theme of a woman
shooting a man she held dear.

Andaz cemented the close relationship between Mehboob and Dilip Kumar.
The two men certainly had need for each other. The film had been marked by
personal tragedies for Mehboob, Dilip Kumar and also Nargis. Mehboob lost his

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mother a week before the film opened, delaying the premiere, while his younger
brother died in a motorcycle accident. Nargis lost Jaddanbai, and thugs in Worli
attacked Dilip Kumar.

The greater menace that faced Dilip Kumar was that, having been bestowed with
the title of the Tragedian, the man who always played the jilted lover, and more
often than not died by the end of the film, he now found real life frighteningly
similar to the roles he played on the screen. In the year leading up to Andaz, he
had acted in four films with Uma Kashyap, who took the screen name of Kamini
Kaushal. If Durga Khote was the first well-brought-up Indian girl to go into films,
then Uma Kashyap was still in a small minority of such girls. Her late father had
been a Rai Bahadur, a tide the British gave to prominent Indians who collaborated
with them. He had been President of the Indian Science Congress and she herself
had come third in her BA examination. But her life had been touched by tragedy.
Following the death of her sister in a car accident, she had married her brother-in-
law, largely to look after her sister’s two children. But then came the movies with
Dilip Kumar and the two fell hopelessly in love.

Publicly, this love was never declared. It could not be. Fdmindia’s reviews of the
films the pair were in spoke in coded language, which made it clear to readers
that in playing lovers on the screen, they were also lovers off the screen.

Interestingly, Sitara Devi, who knew about love, or at least affairs, was a witness
to this love. She would later tell a journalist that once, while travelling on the
Bombay train, she saw the couple together. When she asked where they were
going, Dilip Kumar replied, “We aren’t going anywhere.” It seemed that in order
to get some time together they just travelled up and down the Bombay trains,
something stars of the late 1940s could do, but which would be unthinkable
today. Some time later, Dilip Kumar came to Sitara’s house and shut himself in
her bedroom. An hour later, he emerged to reveal red eyes and a swollen face
which indicated he had been crying. It marked the moment when the affair was
over and Kumar would later call this his ‘hour of crisis’. It could have been a
very tragic hour as well.

While Kaushal was shooting a film called Pugree, in which Dilip Kumar was
not involved, he kept visiting Kaushal on the set. One day, Kamini Kaushal’s
brother, a military man, arrived on the set dressed in his uniform, with a pistol
in his belt. He warned he would shoot Dilip Kumar if he did not end the affair.
Kumar is alleged to have hidden in the ladies' cloakroom to escape his wrath.

One of Dilip Kumar’s biographers says the incident actually took place on the
set of Aarzoo, the last film the pair made together, which had started with Kamini
telling friends that she wanted to leave her husband and marry Dilip Kumar,
but ended with the pair hardly talking to each other.The film, not surprisingly,
proved a disaster. However, in 1963, the story of this doomed love was itself made
into a movie, Gumrah. The director, B.R. Chopra, even asked Dilip Kumar to act
in it but he declined, although the film proved a great success.

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If Dilip Kumar had personal problems then Mehboob, now becoming
something of a mentor to him, had professional ones. Abbas and Sathe had
approached him with the idea of Awara, but Mehboob could not make up his
mind and they went to Raj Kapoor, who instantly bought the rights. Reuben,
who is a biographer of Mehboob, Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor, says this
increased what was already developing into a major Bollywood rivalry. This
made Mehboob decide that he would do something that nobody had achieved
before in Bollywood: a spectacular Technicolor picture which was to be called
Aan. Mehboob, having met DeMille in Hollywood and lapped up the praise
DeMille lavished on him, wanted to bring colour to India.

India at this stage was well behind Hollywood in colour films. There were
no colour laboratories; film-makers had to go to London, and Mehboob
decided to use i6mm Kodachrome and then have the film blown up into 35mm
Technicolour. He also decided to shoot in Hindi, Tamil and English, although
the English version was later abandoned.

Mehboob had originally cast Nargis in the lead role opposite Kumar, and she
was involved in the early shooting but, with Awara also being shot she, to his fury,
withdrew and he vowed never to employ her again. His fury was all the greater as
he felt he had given Nargis her first break in a film {Taqdeer, in 1943). He drafted in
Farah Ezekiel, the last of the Jewish actresses, to play a major role in a Bollywood
film. Dilip Kumar did not take to her and thought her impudent, but Mehboob
shrewdly saw in this impudence an actress who was not afraid of acting, “She is
neither impudent, nor audacious; she is just unafraid of the camera,” Khan told
Kumar. Khan had chosen this feisty and boisterous women mostly for her glowing
skin, sharp features and European looks as he wanted to dub Aan into English as
well. He was to send the film to Cecil DeMille, who wrote back a polite letter
calhng it “an important piece of work, which showed the tremendous potential of
Indian motion pictures for securing world markets.”

Philip Lutgendorf, Professor of Film at the University of Iowa, has described
Aan as set in a fictional kingdom which looks like a cross between Rajasthan
and mad King Ludwigs Bavaria, “an over-the-top operatic fairytale that looks
at times like Disney animation come to life, though Disney would not have
dared the out-front eroticism and fashion and footwear fetishism that permeated
Mehboob’s mis-en-scene”

It made it to London as The Savage Princes, and in Paris as Mangala, Fille des
Indes. There was appreciation, and although one critic felt, “ it goes aan and aan
and aan,” the film did put Bollywood on the world cinematic map. The BBC
even interviewed Dilip Kumar, which was rare for Bollywood actors then. But
the making of the film took a lot out of Mehboob Khan and his team. A scene
would involve endless takes because of the different language versions and the
entire film took 450 shooting days and, having started in 1949, it was released
only in 1952. And while it was a hit it also nearly made Mehbook Khan broke.

The London premiere of Aan had seen Dilip Kumar accompanying Mehboob
Khan there. The film had displayed another side of Dilip Kumar, not many in
Bollywood had suspected he possessed. Before Aan, Dilip Kumar was identified
with playing tragic lovers. In Aan he played the swashbuckling Errol Flyn
character who could ride horses, have sword fights and did not die in the final
scene. Dilip Kumar had come to London with his mind full of thoughts of his
next film and in London he began to talk to some film-makers and other British
experts about a budget for Mughal-e Azam
On June 13, 1952, Filmfare reported:

Dilip Kumar has invested most of his money in property and pictures and is
producing another film now in association with K.Asif. “I can see my dream come
true!” he says.When asked,“What dream?” he answers;“Oh, once when I was a boy,

I dreamt that there was a big pavilion lined by Romans and there was a big carpet in
the rmddle and I was walking on it, flanked by guards in resplendent uniforms. I was
wearing a flowing robe and everything glittered around me. And then, at the end of
the passage,an old man garlanded me!”

The movie was not named but it was clear Asif was back on the trail of his
Holy Grail and, by this time, he had not only got close to Dilip Kumar but,
with Shiraz Ali Hakim no longer there, had settled on Dilip Kumar to play
Prince Salim. Asif had also recast the film. With Chandramohan dead, Prithiviraj
was signed up to play Emperor Akar; various other cast changes were made and
only Durga Khote remained from the original 1945 cast, still playing Akbar’s
Hindu wife, Jodabai. Asif also hired Mohan Studios at Andheri, then the edge of
darkness as far as most people in Bombay were concerned, being far from the
south Bombay centre. Here, he began constructing a huge set as he planned this
to be the sort of extravaganza Bollywood had never seen. The set was soon the
hive of activity with carpenters, labourers, masons, and even tailors present.

But Asif faced one major problem. Who would play Anarkali, the female lead
opposite Dilip Kumar?

Asif might have thought of casting Nargis but, in 1950, while Dfiip Kumar was
filming Hulchul, an Asif production — although it was being directed by his assistant,
S.K. Ojha - there had been a major faUing-out between Dihp Kumar and Nargis.
Like all Asif productions, it took a long time to make. The film originally started
before India’s independence, was only released in 1951, and Dihp Kumar was more
than a mere actor in it. He was in effect producing it and determining how it
was shot, how the scenes looked, and how intimate his scenes with Nargis were.
Nargis’s brother objected to the time taken to make it. Nargis soon fell iU but, after
she returned to complete the film, her brother argued about the way Dilip Kumar
wanted some of the more intimate scenes shot, and she was never to play opposite
Dihp Kumar again. Asif had to find another heroine.

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[n what was an extraordinary move in Bollywood, Asif actually advertised for
actresses to apply for the lead female role. On February 8 1952, an advertisement
appeared in Screen, the weekly trade paper, asking girls between sixteen and
twenty-two to apply. Five were selected but it was clear none of them was
suitable. The result was that Nutan, then making her mark, was selected.

Filmfare reported:

Nutan was initially selected to play the role ofAnarkali in K.Asif’s Mugltal-cAzam.
Asif and Dilip Kumar went on a countrywide search and interviewed hundreds of
candidates for the role—and not one came up to their expectations! Finally, they
have selected Nutan, who will definitely be a misfit (says a reader), in a role which
calls for grace and histrionic ability. Madhubala would have been a better choice.

On May 2 1952, Screen was still saying it would be Nutan. But it was not to
be. She declined and soon the production hit fresh problems. With Asif running
out of money, work at Mohan Studios came to a halt, and Bollywood assumed
Asif’s film would never come.

This was certainly the reaction of Kamal Amrohi, who had written the script
for Asif He decided to sell the script to a company called Filmkar, run by two
brothers, Makhanlal and Rajendra Jain, who also asked him to direct the film.

Quite independently of this Sasadhar Mukeijee, of Filmistan, also announced
the making of a film called Anarkali and, unlike Asif, he not only had a hero,
Pradeep Kumar, to play Prince Salim, but a heroine, Bina Rai, to play Anarkali,
in addition to a music director, a lyricist and, of course, he would, himself,
direct. For Dilip Kumar, these were friends setting up rival films. Mukeijee was
something of a mentor and Filmkar was the company which had made Deedar,
in which Dilip Kumar had starred with Ashok Kumar and Nargis.The film had
been directed by another mentor, Nitin Bose, who had advised him to develop
the naturalistic, soft-spoken style that was his hallmark. It was during the shooting
of this film that the infamous “Dilip Kumar bites Ashok Kumar” incident took
place. Ashok Kumar, unhappy at how the scenes were going, landed a few
punches on Dilip, who bit his hand. When Ashok protested to Nitin, the director
asked Dilip, “How could you bite a senior actor like that?” Dilip Kumar replied.
“Why did he punch me? Am I not younger than him?” The incident, however,
did not affect the friendship between the two actors.

Asif realised he faced major problems with these two rival films. Furious as he
was, he could do nothing about the Mukeijee film. He was determined not to
let Amrohi get away with it. Amrohi had written the script for his film, and he
had been paid for it, making the script the copyright of Asif, and he enforced his
rights. Filmkar was forced to cancel its plans. Mukeijee went ahead and produced
a film that was well-received but even more than the story, it was the songs sung
by Lata Mangeshkar that proved a great hit, the toe-tapping songs that Indian

Dy Lata iviangesnkar tnat proven a great nit, tne toe-tapping songs tnat Indian

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audiences love. Asif, meanwhile could only stamp his feet at frustration as he
once again started on the search for a heroine for his movie.

This was the cue for Madhubala to enter as Anarkali. And here, as with so
much in Bollywood, real life mimicked screen life. Madhubala had come a long
way since her debut with Ashok Kumar. She was now a beautiful young woman,
who had played opposite Dilip Kumar and had also fallen in love with him.

Madhubala could have been in Dilip Kumar’s very first film but received the
summons for it from Devika Rani too late. The pair had started making a movie
together back in 1949, but it had never been completed. They finally got their
act together in Tarana, in 1951. A story of romance, it featured the usual quota of
coincidences and villains, with Madhubala playing an unlettered village girl who
is the love of an English doctor, played by Dilip Kumar. By this time, both were
ready for love off the screen. Kumar had got Kamini Kaushal out of his system
and Madhubala, still only seventeen, was yearning for it.

On the first day of the shooting, she got her make-up woman to take a rose
to Dilip Kumar’s dressing-room. It bore the message: ‘if you want me, please
order this rose; if not, send it back’. Dilip Kumar eagerly accepted, and one of
BoUywood’s most dramatic love stories began. It was so potent that it ended up
in court and had more drama than anything seen on the screen.

There can be little doubt that Dilip Kumar persuaded Asif that Madhubala must
play Anarkali in his film. The problem for Asif was Madhubala’s father, Attaullah
Khan. This was like a replay of a Victorian suitor seeking the permission of a
father for his daughter’s hand. Attaullah Khan specified that his daughter would
not do any night shooting, no visitors were to be allowed on the sets, she would
have sight of the full script with dialogue for the shooting in advance, and no
last minute changes of the kind Bollywood loved. At one stage, Asif got so angry
he walked out but Madhubala, keen to be with the love of her life, called him
to one side and, outside her father’s hearing, said, “Be sure I’m playing Anarkali
in your film, Asif Sahab. Don’t worry about anything that Abba says. I guarantee
you unconditional obedience and full support on this film.”

Attaullah probably insisted on the conditions because he was aware that his
daughter had fallen for Dilip Kumar. In theory, the romance between the tw'o,
even the marriage which Madhubala so de.sired, should have been no problem.
Both were single, both Muslims, indeed Pathans, and it seems at first even
Attaullah and Dilip got on.

It was common for Dilip Kumar to come to his house and pick up Madhubala
in his car and drive off for an evening out. At this stage, according to Reuben,
Dilip Kumar was not her lover but he was merely acting as the good friend of
Premnath with whom Madhubala had acted in films like Badal, and to whom
she had also sent a rose and who had also responded. Premnath, in the 1950s,
was seen as the Indian Douglas Fairbanks, and Dilip and Premnath were bosom
friends.They had acted together in Aan and he would often be sitting crouched

irienas. i ney naa actea togetner in /ian ana ne would otten be sitting crouched

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in the back seat, as Dilip Kumar and Madubhala were bidding goodbye to
Attaullah and driving off into the Bombay sunset. Premnath only emerged once
he knew they were out of sight of Attaullah. AttauUah would certainly have
objected to Premnath, as he was a Hindu. This situation may have continued for
some time but then the friendship between Dilip and Premnath abruptly ended
when Premnath decided to make a film called Dilip—The Donkey. Premnath
tried to moUify Dilip by saying Dilip should be pleased as he, Premnath, would
play the donkey. But that is not how Dilip saw it. Premnath, who was the
brother-in-law of Raj Kapoor, being his wife’s brother would, in one of those
Bollywood’s ironies, eventually marry the woman who first portrayed Anarkali
on film, Bina Rai.

The Dilip Kumar-Madhubala romance was clearly blossoming by the early
1950S, certainly after Tarana. Unlike with Kamini Kaushal, the two stars did not
have to journey up and down on Bombay trains. There was now more money
in Bollywood and, in any case, trains were overcrowded. Dilip Kumar would visit
her on sets when she was acting in films in which he was not; they would meet
in cars, in each other’s make-up rooms or, sometimes, in the houses of common
friends, like Sushila Rani.

The film, Amar, which Mehboob Khan made, starring both of them, provided
more opportunities for such meetings. By this time, Dilip Kumar was making sure
Madhubala was in as many of his films as conceivably possible and every time an
opportunity arose he pushed her name forward. Mehboob had begun shooting
the film with another lead actress, Meena Kumari, but she left after a disagreement
between Mehboob and her husband, Kamal Amrohi. This allowed Dilip Kumar
to persuade Mehboob to replace her with Madhubala. In the film, Dilip Kumar
rapes a woman (Nimmi) who, fleeing from a villain, had taken shelter with him.
The cowardly hero now refuses to come forward and allows the woman to suffer
the consequences of the rape. When his fiancee, Madhubala, finds out what has
happened, she stands up for the girl and the hero eventually marries her. But, if the
film helped their romance, it did nothing for Mehboob. Although he considered
this story his favourite film, it flopped as audiences, used to heroes who were strong
and dominant, refused to accept a weak and negative one. This was followed by
two other failures, but all this did not deter Mehboob. He was determined to make
Mother India and by this time, was busy working on the idea.

In October 1952, he wrote to the Joint Chief Controller of Imports,
requesting an import permit for raw film which would make 180 prints.This was
nearly three times the usual amount sanctioned, and long negotiations ensued.
Mehboob also brought to India Sabu Dastogir, who had played The Elephant
Boy in the 1935 film, directed by Robert Flaherty, and put him up at Bombay’s
Ambassador Hotel, a posh hotel, paying him Rs5,ooo a month. At this stage,
Mehboob had not called the film Mother India. Indeed, when he performed the
Muharat ceremony for it, he titled it: This Land is Mine.

Mehboob was clearly working on various ideas as to how to make the
movie and this included having long talks with Dilip Kumar, whom he saw as
playing Biiju, the rebellious son of Radha, the character played by Nargis. Their
friendship was now so strong that he even interceded with Baburao Patel, who
had always been critical of Dilip Kumar’s acting, to write something positive
about the star. But, as Dilip Kumar made more demands suggesting how Biiju
could be the central character, and also about the shooting of the film, Mehboob
distanced himself from the actor. Their relationship was also affected by the fact
that Mehboob did nothing to help Dilip Kumar over his brother, Nasir Khan. He
had gone to Pakistan but, like many of Bollywood’s Muslim immigrants, failed to
do much there and returned to Bombay looking for work. Dilip Kumar wanted
him to play the lead in Aawaz, directed by one of Mehboob’s scriptwriters,
Zia Sarhady. But he had already cast someone else in that role. Mehboob did
not want to intervene in the creative process and this marked the end of the
partnership between Mehboob and Dilip Kumar. Their personal friendship did
not cease and some years later Mehboob would suggest how Dilip Kumar could
play a crucial scene in what would prove a landmark film.

The role of Biiju went to Sunil Dutt who, although he had made his debut in
films, was still working in the Bombay bus depot while doing some broadcasting
assignments for Radio Ceylon.

Dastogir soon flew back to Los Angeles and Mehboob now decided to
reinstate the old title. Mother India. This, however, was fraught with difficulties. In
Government eyes, the title Mother India raised the spectre of Mayo’s book, Mother
India, and Mehboob Khan had to write letters reassuring the Government that
far from denigrating India, the movie was intended to be an answer to Mayo. At
that time, many politicians were convinced that movies were bad for the country.
In June 1954, 13,000 housewives had presented a petition to Nehru saying the
cinema was a threat to “the moral health of the country” and was “a major factor
in incitement to crime and general unsettlement of society.” This was taken up
eagerly by some politicians who tabled a motion in the Indian Parliament to ban
“undesirable films.”

One of the most vociferous anti-cinema politicians was K.M. Munishi, a very
right-wing member of the Congress party who was about to join the Swantra
Party, espousing a capitalist line of development, as opposed to Nehru’s socialism.
Although he had written for films, and also acted as a lawyer for film companies
he and his wife, Leelavati, launched an anti-cinema campaign, holding public
meetings backing the housewives’ line. In 1956, as Mehboob was busy shooting
Mother India, Leelavati would complain to Prvithiraj about Dilip Kumar’s
hairstyle. He had a mop of hair which fell over his eyes, zulfay, as it is called in
Urdu. For his fans it was much celebrated and in 1954, when he led a procession
of stars to collect money for flood relief, the sheets holding the money donated
were found to contain, in addition to the many thousands of rupee notes, quite

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a few combs. Leelavati told Pnthviraj that Dilip Kumar’s hair-style was having
“adverse effects” on the country’s youth to which Pnthviraj replied that an
actor’s hairstyle was not relevant. He, himself, had not been to a barber since
1941, but trimmed his own hair, so what did that make him?

The view that films and everything associated with films was bad had
sympathisers in the Government. The Minister of Information and Broadcasting,
Dr B.V. Keskar, who disliked both cricket and films and was the great Indian kill¬
joy, said film songs only appealed to “raw and immature people like children and
adolescents.” Following his orders All India Radio first cut down on songs and,
then, for a time banned them. All it succeeded in doing was making a foreign
radio station very rich. Radio Ceylon launched a Hindi service, broadcasting
Hindi film music, earning millions of rupees m advertising revenue, all of it
coming from India and made stars of various Indians, including Sunil Dutt.
This must be unique in cinema history; that a Government deliberately tried to
damage its own national industry and helped that of another country. But such
stupidity can be all too common in India.

Mehboob also had to live with the censor’s scissors. One dialogue, where the
rapacious village money-lender taunts Nargis, was considered too cruel; another,
where after a flood villagers are seen approaching the landlord but he refuses to
help, much too provocative. Mehboob fought hard against some of the deletions
and the film carried a mark showing the director had objected.

Like Asif, Mehboob also had his battles over copyright. National, for whom he
had made Aurat back in 1940, filed a court action alleging breach of copyright
and Mehboob replied that what National owned was Aurat’s first production
rights, not permanent ownership, and the case was settled out of court. Mehboob
did use the old Aurat script, written by Vajahat Mirza, but got Ali Raza to revise
It. Others joined in scriptwriting sessions, but it was largely the work of Mirza
and Raza, although just before the film was released Mirza, a dozen among the
scriptwriters objected to having his name associated with Raza, who was much
more junior to him, an indication of the hierarchical nature of Indian society.
Raza graciously asked Mehboob to remove his name but Mehboob would not
oblige. All this delayed Mehboob’s film, although not on the scale of Asif’s, but
it provided enough time for Nargis to play in a movie by I.S.Johar, called Miss
India, which was finished and released by March 1957, several months before
Mother India.

Mehboob was able to get the principal actors, Nargis and Raj Kumar. Kumar
played Nargis’s husband, Shyaniu, who had to learn farming methods, such
as how to use a plough, sowing, reaping, and cotton-picking. Mehboob was
keen to bring as much realism as he could and, according to Chatteijee, the
first shots of the films were taken by Irani back in September 1955 in Uttar
Pradesh, which had experienced flooding. Irani travelled there soon after the
floods. Later, actual villages near Billimoria were used and villagers were paid.

although the publicity material for the film made the villagers appear keen to
help with the film with no mention of money being involved. Rather than
using film extras as dancers, villagers were used for rural dancing sequences
shown in the film. The many village scenes in the film have influences of both
the American film-maker, King Vidor, and also Soviet influences. India, as part
of its five-year plan, was then in the middle of its co-operative farming plan,
persuading farmers to come together in large farms, in order to curb the power
of the landlords.

The colour for the film had caused many problems and Mehboob, aware that
time was passing, finally decided to shoot in Gevacolour and then process in
Technicolor, with Irani travelling to the London offices of Technicolour for this
purpose. Mehboob wanted to release the film on August 15 1957, to emphasise its
nationalist credentials but did not manage that, although the pubficity campaign of
the film was launched on Radio Ceylon. Mehboob was weO aware that no Indian
film buff missed the station’s acclaimed programme, Binaca Geetmala, a programme
of film songs sponsored by Binaca, a popular toothpaste brand in the country.

The film was finally premiered on October 25 1957 at Liberty, where Mehboob
had an arrangement with the owners for exhibiting his films. Mehboob need
not have worried about its success for soon there was such high demand that a
vigorous black market started. Two days earlier, Mehboob had visited the holy
shrine of Aulia Chishti in Ajmer to seek blessings. Mehboob was the sort of
secular man Nehru wanted Indians to be. Although he was privately religious,
he never brought religion into his films.

Before the premiere, Mehboob had cultivated Nehru and had written to
him asking for his blessing for the film. His letter to Nehru was fawning in the
extreme saying that, “No function in our country is complete without your
dynamic personality.” If Nehru liked the picture and gave him a certificate, then
he offered to frame the certificate “as an heirloom in my humble family.” This
was part of his desire to make sure the film received public support from the
Government, which could also be useful in getting some relief from the punitive
entertainment tax local Governments imposed on films. High Government
officials and ministers had been present at the premiere. Soon the film was being
viewed in Rashtrapati Bhavan, the Viceregal Palace, now the home of Indian
Presidents. At the viewing was Rajendra Prasad, the President, along with Nehru,
and his daughter Indira. In various parts of the country, other politicians also saw
the film. In Calcutta, Nehru’s lover, Padmaja Naidu, who was then Governor of
West Bengal, saw it with the Congress Chief Minister of the State, B.C. Roy. In
Bombay, Moraiji Deal, by now Chief Minister of Bombay, came to the premiere.
He even agreed to Mehboob’s request to exempt it from entertainment tax in
the state of Bombay. Nehru’s views on the film are not known but Indira wrote
a note to Nargis saying, “The film is drawing very good reviews. Everyone has
praised your acting. The same cannot be said of the others.”

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Bollywood's Classic Era

209

Mehboob had sold rights only to those distributors who paid in advance. In
Delhi, Indira Films paid Rs4O0,000. However, Mehboob, fearful of piracy, took
great care when sending the prints around the country. His men accompanied
them, sat in the theatre while the film was being shown, and collected the prints
afterwards. Also, nobody was allowed to screen the film in the morning or for
early matinee shows. It was only shown at three, six or nine p.m. — prime viewing
times for movies in India then.

Mehboob was keen for its release abroad and had been selling the foreign
distributions rights since 1954, but the film had to be shortened to two hours.
Its success in countries where Awara had been a hit was, perhaps, to be expected.
Countries such as Greece, Spain, and Russia loved the movie, but countries like
Poland, Czechoslovakia and much of Eastern Europe also saw it and liked it as
weU. So did Brazil, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador, and the Arab countries, and many
parts of Africa.

Years later, Brian Larkins, in Bollywood Comes to Nigeria, would write, “It’s a
Friday night in Kano, northern Nigeria and Mother India is playing at Marhaba
cinema. Outside, scalpers are hurriedly selling the last tickets to 2,000 people
lucky enough to buy seats in this open cinema on the edge of Africa’s Shield
Desert.”

The West, or at least parts of it, also liked it. It was shown in Paris in June 1958,
where it was well-received, with one producer/director saying, “This man is the
world’s greatest film-maker today.” But in London’s Rialto, where a 95-minute
version was shown, it was not a success nor was it taken around the country. In
New York, The Monthly Film Bulletin dismissed it as a “rag bag pantomime.”

It was not actually shown in the United States until 1959, despite the fact that
it was one of the five nominations for the 1958 Oscars in the Academy’s Foreign
Film Awards category. Although this was a great honour, this also caused problems.
There was no English subtitled version of Mother India, in stark contrast to the
other four nominations.This could only be done in London and Mehboob had
run out of foreign exchange which, by this time, was very scarce in India. Also,
the prints had developed scratches and the Academy wanted a pristine print.
Technicolour came to the rescue and a subtitled pristine print was provided.

Mehboob, his wife Sardar, and Nargis, decided to go to Los Angeles for
the Oscars. The problem was foreign exchange. India was now in the grip of
a severe foreign exchange shortage. In 1947, India had come to freedom with
large sterling balances built up during the war as a result of goods and services
supplied to Britain. But they had long been spent and, so bad was the foreign
exchange situation, that Indians seeking to travel abroad had to fill a Form P for
travel, authorised by the Reserve Bank of India, and were allowed only ,{^3 for
a trip, just enough, the joke went, for a peg of whisky on the Air India flight.
$75 had been sanctioned for each of the three and Mehboob wrote a pleading
letter to Nehru:

Our picture, (by “our” I mean picture belongs to our great country), has been
selected as one of the five best pictures.You know I am pure swadeshi [the Gandhian
term meaning a lover of Indian goods and ideas] producer without any English
education, and I badly need the help and support of our nation’s representatives
in America. Like other international producers, I should be able to show that our
Government is also backing me. Otherwise, 1 will look small and lonely.

Chatteijee says this letter reflects that India was stiU in a feudal state, a letter
a villager might write to a village elder, and it indicates how Mehboob, while
a movie moghul in his studio, could “bend and be child-like before another
figure of authority.” But it worked and $1,200 was sanctioned for each of the
three. It was certainly enough for Mehboob to hold a press conference after the
ceremony, where he looked far from small and lonely.

Unfortunately, the press conference was not a victory conference. Mother India
had been beaten by Fellini’s, Nights of Cabiria, by one vote. But in India, it was
showered with awards, including ‘Best Picture’ at the Filmfare Awards. Filmfare,
having taken over from Mehboob’s friend, Patel’s Filmindia, as the country’s
leading film magazine, and its awards being the country’s Oscars. Mehboob got
the Award for Direction, Irani for Cinematography and for Best Sound, while
Nargis got the Best Actress Award. She also got a similar award at the Karlovy
Vary Film Festival in then Czechoslovakia.

Mehboob, though, had suffered a heart attack in Los angles on 26 March and it
was some months, and a stay in London, before he recovered. But in the cinematic
sense, he never did recover and never completed another film like Mother India,
although there was a Son of India (a movie that is considered to be his worst). He
had plans to make a film on the life of Habba Khatoon, the sixteenth century
poetess and queen of Kashmir. But before this came to anything, he died.

He died on May 28 1964, the day after Nehru died, a death for Indians of my
generation comparable to that of John E Kennedy for Americans in the 1960s. A
few months before his death, Mehboob received the Padmashri, the awards India
had started after independence to replace the discarded British honours and which
Nargis had received back in 1958, just months after the release of Mother India.
Like Nehru’s death, which marked the end of an era in Indian politics, Mehboob’s
passing brought the curtain down on a certain kind of Indian film-making.

If Mehboob made nothing worthwhile after Mother India, then this also
effectively marked the end of Nargis in films, as she would only make one
more. The year after Mother India was released, Nargis had married Sunil Dutt,
in a romance that stunned Bollywood, not just because of the son marrying the
actress who played his mother in a film, but also because it was a Hmdu-Muslim
marriage. However, the way Sunil Dutt would later present it, he was drawn
to her because he thought she would be good for his family—just the sort of
sentiments Mother India was promoting:

2^g Bollywood; A History

Actually, I saw her first at a premiere. She had a luminous aura, a rare beauty of
goodness that shone through. It was as if she was from another world and beyond
reach. Her generosity and kindness was something I discovered later when she took
my ailing sister and had her operated upon quietly, even though I didn’t know her
very well. I always knew that the woman who would become my wife had to be
someone who would be able to take care of my younger brother and sister, and keep
my mother happy. I realised soon after that she was the woman for me. One day, I
finally decided that the time had come to tell Nargisji how I felt about her and I
finally gathered enough courage to tell her on a drive back home. She didn’t say
anything, but a couple of days later she told my sister to tell me her answer was yes.

Mother India would leave many legacies. But one legacy profoundly affected
how Bollywood actually made films. Mother India was the last film to be shot
with sync sound, meaning the sound was recorded on location during shooting.
After that, the lines the actors and actresses spoke as the film was shot became
irrelevant, as this was not recorded. Instead, some time after the shoot, they
would come to a studio and record their dialogues, what became known as
dubbed sound. Mehboob thought it was soulless, but other Indian directors felt
it helped them overcome the problems of the noise the cameras made and gave
them a better quality of sound. This would affect the working conditions in
Indian sets.Those working there, aware that the sounds being recorded were not
going to be used, continued to make a racket while the film was shot, in contrast
to the silent studios of the West. This did not change for more than forty years
until Aamir Khan made Lagaan and reintroduced sync sound. Suddenly, Indian
actors, actresses and technicians had to learn to be quiet when the director said,
‘Action!’

The days of shooting with Mehboob had returned. And what was Asif doing
while Mehboob was finally screening Mother India?

Asif's Godot Finally Arrives

In 1957, Asif was still in the throes of making the film when complications arose,
not so much with the film but between Dilip Kumar and Madhubala, which
would result in an extraordinary court case.

B.R. Chopra, the young man who Ashok Kumar had taken such a liking to,
was looking for an idea for a film when the writer, Akhtar Mirza, narrated a
story. After the deal was done, and a down-payment was made, Mirza said he had
another story idea which he much preferred. Would Chopra listen to it? This
may seem very odd behaviour but it was standard for Bollywood, and the reason
was that Mirza knew this second story had been rejected by many directors,
including Mehboob. Now having received a deal, he thought this second idea
was worth a try with Chopra. It worked and Chopra was much taken by it, more
than the original idea which he had bought. The story was about a fight between
man and machine, with the man triumphant in the end.

Chopra immediately thought this would be an ideal film for Dilip Kumar and
Madhubala.The result was the film Naya Daur, where Ddip Kumar played a villager
who has a tonga - a horse carriage - which he races against a bus, and wins.

Everything seemed to be going fine until it came to location shooting. The
film was set in and around Bhopal, and Chopra planned to shoot it in a village
called Budhni, around 150 miles from the city.

But when he went to Madhbubala’s father to seek permission, he flatly
refused. Attaullah was no longer the indulgent father who had waved Dilip and
Madhubala away in their car for a drive around Bombay. Bunny Reuben says
the friendship turned to enmity when Attaullah Khan, who also fancied making
films, wanted to cast Dilip Kumar and Madhubala in a film. Kumar rejected it,
as he did not like mixing business with personal relations. He also made it clear
that he did not want anything to do with his father-in-law-to-be once they were
married, and that Madhubala would no longer be allowed to act, once she was
his wife. For AttauUah, given that Madhubala was his source of money, this was
a terrible prospect to behold.

212

Bollywood: A Hisiory

Chopra decided that in that case, he would do without her. Dilip Kumar was
already involved in another film with Vyjayanthimala, and Chopra signed her up.
What is more, he took full page ads in all the trade papers showing Madhubala’s
name crossed out, and Vyjayanthimala’s name inserted. Madhubala retaliated by
placing adverts showing all the films she was working in and with Naya Daur
crossed out.

But this was not enough for Attaullah. He was so outraged that he filed a
case against Chopra alleging he had sacked Madhubala on flimsy grounds and
there was no need for shooting outside Bombay, as all the locations required
could easily be found in the city. Chopra counter-sued in a criminal case against
Madhubala, asking for his signing-fee back.

Nothing like this had ever been seen in Bombay. As the hearing opened,
crowds lined the street around the Magistrate’s Court in Girgaum. The
Magistrate, R. S. Parekh, heard some remarkable evidence, including the first
public acknowledgement of the romance between Dilip Kumar and Madhubala.
It ended with Dilip Kumar’s dramatic statement, “I love this woman and I shall
love her till my dying day.” Bollywood was electrified. In a world where there
were any number of rumoured romances and affairs, no one had ever made such
a statement, and in open court at that.

In the end, Chopra emerged victorious. The judge, on seeing the film, was
convinced location shooting was necessary but Chopra, generously, did not'
pursue Attaullah for the money, although Ataullah did some time later have the
cheek to approach Chopra and ask him to direct a story idea he had.

The case, it would seem, marked the moment when Dilip Kumar’s love for
Madhubala turned sour, although Madhubala never stopped loving him and soon
after, when Bunny Reuben went to interview her, braving the Alsatian dogs
that guarded the Attaullah house, she told him she still carried a torch for him.
But, when this declaration was carried back to Dilip Kumar, he snorted, “What
bloody torch!”

Asif could not have been pleased that his two principal players were now
more foes than lovers. And this at a time when he was still not sure the film
could be completed. He would often come to Dilip Kumar for advice and on
one occasion turned up during the shooting of Naya Daur. He had secured the
backing of Shapooiji Pallonji, the Parsi construction baron, who Hakim had
introduced him to before leaving for Pakistan, and who was also a great admirer
of Dilip Kumar. But this was a rocky relationship. His more consuming worry
was what to do with Attaullah, when the close-up scenes between Dilip Kumar
and Madhubala were to be shot.

In the film. Prince Salim wore a feather, and the scenes would be as intimate
as anything ever seen on the Indian screen till then. In one scene, as Madhubala
lies prostrate on the floor, Dilip Kumar leans over in an unmistakable erotic
suggestion and caresses Madhubala’s face with an ostrich feather. Asif was terrified

Asif's Godot Finally Arrives

213

that old Attalluah would create such a real-life scene while the cinematic one was
being shot, that he would never be able to complete the scene. So Asif told his
publicist, Taraknath Gandhi, that during the shooting of that scene, and during
similar such scenes between Dilip Kumar and Madhubala, he had a very simple
task: to keep Attaullah engaged. He liked playing rummy and liked winning.
“Your job from today,” said Asif, “as well as for the next few days, is to play
rummy with Khan Saheb, and lose! Go on losing, do you understand? You must
keep him happy until my work is done.”

Taraknath played his cards beautifully, lost a lot of money, Attaullah did not
leave the card table, and Asif filmed some of the most magical love scenes ever
seen on the Indian screen.

Dilip Kumar continued to promote the film often persuading actors to take
roles in it. The actor, Ajit, who played a secondary role as the chivalrous Rajput
Duijan Singh, had initially refused the part. But, as he later recalled, “my friend
Dihp Kumar persuaded me to accept it. He assured me that the significance of
the role will not be lost in the grandeur of the film. I know now that Dilip was
absolutely right.”

On June 20, 1958, Filmfare reported, “Mughal-e Azam, the Dihp Kumar-
Madhubala film, which went on the floor in 1952, is at last nearing completion.
Last month, director K. Asif shot a number of battle scenes on location in
Madhya Bharat and Rajasthan.”

Asif knew the film made no historical sense. There was no Anarkali and there
were other inaccuracies. While Akbar had Hindu wives, and the real Salim’s
mother was a Hindu, she was not the Jodabai of the film who is portrayed as the
daughter of a major Rajput king. In real life, the Hindu mother of Salim was
the daughter of Raja Bhagara Mai, a very minor royalty, and she was not called
Jodabai. That was the name of the Hindu wife of Salim, who produced his son
and became Shah Jahan, the creator of the Taj Mahal. And, while Salim did rebel
against his father, Akbar, it was not over a dancing girl but due to the Mughal
poHtics of the day.

But Asif was also very aware that Indians did not care for authentic history,
but for costume dramas, where history was just a peg on which to hang a story.
There had been Bollywood film-makers who had tried proper historical films
and failed. Shorab Modi was a warning to all film-makers who tried to attract
Indian audiences with anything like authentic history. Back in 1941 - long before
Asif had met Sitara Devi, or conceived of Mujrhal-e Azam - at his studio, Minerva
Movietone Modi, had made Sikandar —his historical film about Alexander
and his encounter with the Indian King Porus (Sikander being the name for
Alexander in the East). Modi was such a stickler for history that he even had
the actual weight of Sikander estimated, and required his actors to strip down to
their underwear every day and weigh themselves to make sure they were near
that weight. Prithviraj played Sikander, but the film caused problems with the

214

Bollywood; A History

Asif's Godot Finally Arrives

215

British censors as they did not like the scene of Alexander’s soldiers’mutiny and
feared it might give their Indian soldiers ideas. It was therefore banned in some
areas of the country. The movie announced Prithviraj as a great actor and was
weU-received by critics. But it proved a commercial failure. In 1953, Modi made
what is considered his greatest film, Rani qfjbansi, about the rebel queen who, in
1857, defied the British. It cost Rs 9 million and was such a failure it bankrupted
Modi, and his studio. Asif had no desire to follow that route. Modi, however, was
to figure in Mughal-e Azam in a curious way, as we shall see.

For Asif , choosing Prithviraj to play Akbar was easy, although he realised he
must treat him with care. Prithviraj was in reality a great stage actor. Geoffrey
Kendal, whose daughter, Jennifer, married Shashi during the shooting of the
film (with Asif providing a Dakota to fly Prithviraj to the wedding), called him
a “throw back to the old-time English actor-manager relationship.’’

But, by the time he came to make Mughal-e Azam, Prithviraj was old and kept
forgetting his lines and, for one scene, there were nineteen takes. Asif would,
before shooting a scene, send a man to the great actor’s dressing- room, only to
be told, “Prithviraj was ready, but Akbar was not.” There were occasions when
the old actor and the director clashed which once led Prithviraj to say to Asif,
“Nobody has ever talked to me like that.” But he still had the old actor’s desire to
experience what he was presenting. In the film there was a scene where, as Akbar,
he had to walk over burning sand. Asif offered him slippers and to shoot the
scene in such a way it would not show, but he refused the slippers and insisted
the shot be done with him walking on bare feet.

In one scene, portraying the clash between father and son, Akbar and Salim,
Prithviraj is seen with his back to the audience. Madhu Jain writes:

Apparently, when he requested Asif to film that particular scene without showing his
face, the cynics tittered that the elder thespian feared he would not be able to maintain
the histrionics of the younger actor and fellow-Pathan, Dilip Kumar. Prithiviraj
incarnated the old theatrical school of acting, whereas Dihp Kumar, with his quiet
voice and understated acting, was clearly a creature of the cinema.. .Others claimed
Kapoor could do more with his back than Dilip Kumar could with his face.

The critical view is that Prithviraj won the scene with the way he clenched
and unclenched his hands. Certainly, at the premiere of the film, more attention
was paid to Prithviraj than to Dihp Kumar. After the premiere of Mughal-e Azam,
Filmfare concentrated a great deal on Prithviraj saying, “As the tide role player,
Prithviraj Kapoor was one of the few basking in the glory of the moment. He
had worked hard and earnestly. Back in 1952, on his very first shooting day for the
picture, he reported for work with his feet swollen and painful with varicose ulcers.
After getting his feet with difficulty into the shoes prescribed by the producer the
pain,when he tried to walk, made him all but scream. Yet, he went on with the

day’s work. On another occasion, during the shooting of an outdoor scene on a
baking summer day, he walked barefoot on the scalding sands of Rajasthan. And he
walked erect through the picture wearing armour so heavy that it once frightened
away a hulking ‘extra,’ who was chosen as a double for Prithviraj in a scene.”

Asif’s great ability, as with Prithviraj, was to pick talent and he did so splendidly
with his recruitment of Naushad as the film’s music director.Years later Naushad
would recall:

K. Asif was a dreamer. He would often dream and talk of making a grand film
one day. My friendship with him went back to the days when I was simply Naushad
and not Naushad, the musician We (Asif, Saab and me) had a common friend Nazie
(the actor), and we would often while away the time over umpteen cups of chai. I
was working on the music for one of Mehboob's films when Asif approached me to
compose the music for his film. I was in my house, bent over the harmonium, fiddling
with some tunes when suddenly I heard a loud thud. I looked up and saw bundles
of notes lying on my harmonium. I counted them. They were Rs 50,000 in all. Asif
towered above me, blowing smoke from his cigarette.Very nonchalandy, he told me he
wanted me to compose the music for Mughal-e Azam! I was trembling with rage and
threw the notes back at him and asked him to give the money to some musician who
did not work without an advance. My servant heard me yell and told my wife that the
room was filled with fluttering notes. She rushed down to see the miracle! I’ve never
worked for money. My only aim was and is to smeU the soil of India in my music.

Naushad says he worked for the film without money, and this helped in his
relationship with Pallonji which, given Asif’s way of working, was quite the
most dramatic. The businessman just could not get a budget for the film from
Asif and the more Asif refused, the more terrified the financier became until he
asked Naushad to convince Asif to give him a budget. “But who was I to stop a
dreamer?” says Naushad.

Naushad, however, often had to mediate between Asif and Shapooiji.

For instance, shooting the war scene, according to Asif, required at least Rs
300,000—a figure he arrived at after much persuasion from Shapooiji to give him
a budget. But, by the time the set and cast was assembled, and the set was readied,
some years had passed and consequently the budget shot up. Shapooiji was very
upset. However, Asif had found a way to deal with him. He laid a bet with me
that Shapooiji would not only give him Rs 600,000 but, more importantly, give it
with a smile! The idea was so far-fetched it was funny. The next day we gathered
at a studio. Shapooiji was stiU cribbing and complaining. Asif had organised the
screening of some war scene. The moment the screening was over, Shapooiji was
not just smiling, he was happy, and sanctioned the money for the Mughal-e Azam
war scene!

Ballywaod; A History

Asif's Godot Finally Arrives

217

21B

What had made Shapoorji smile, as Asif quickly explained to Naushad, was
“Akbar is his favourite character from history and every time Shapoorji sees him
on screen, it makes him extremely happy.” Asif used Akbar every time Shapooiji
refused money!

However, there was an occasion when Shapoorji completely lost his head.
And this would come close to scuppering the making of the movie. It was
over the Sheesh Mahal Asif built by special ‘karigars’ (workers) he had brought
from Faridabad, near Delhi. Shapoorji was horrified by the cost. He decided
to take things in his own hands and approached Sohrab Modi to take over the
directorship. Modi assured him that he would complete the film in three months
and without overshooting the budget.

Asif was having trouble shooting the ‘Sheesh Mahal’ due to the reflecting
mirrors and had been unable to come up with a solution, so far. Meanwhile,
Shapooiji had told Naushad of his plan to take Modi to the set at Mohan Studio,
to familiarise him with the film and the set.

Naushad cautioned Asif of the impending visit. So, when the duo reached the
set, Shapooiji asked the spot boy to turn on the lights. Suddenly, Asif emerged
and threatened to break anyone’s legs who dared to enter his set. And he also
promised to complete the shooting of the song in time.

As if to prove he could do it, Asif took some shots—a long shot, a mid-shot and
a close-up—and sent them to the Technicolor lab in London.They loved the effect
and so did Shapooiji. He told Naushad “Asif is so brilliant!” But, then, Asif shocked
him by saying that he had fulfilled his promise of shooting the song, so now he
could employ Modi! Naushad had again to step in to resolve that crisis.

Then, again, Asif wanted to use marble for the scene where Anarkali had to be
buried alive. But Shapooiji was terrified, as Rsi25,ooo ooo had been spent and he
was being told that the film would not generate any money in the market. That crisis
also blew over, but there were many others before the film could be completed.

Naushad always believed that “a reason why the film took so long in the
making was that there was just not enough money for shooting continuously.” In
the end, the film took so long that the stars’ contract had to be renewed nearly
three times during its making.

The picture Naushad has painted of Asif is of a man who truly valued his art,
rather than money. When Shapooiji approached him to broker a deal with Dilip
Kumar for a profit-sharing partnership in the film Ganga Jamuna, a film that he
also financed, he readily did so. In order to show his gratitude, Shapooiji gave
him Rs50,ooo but, Asif says, Naushad was so livid that he refused to take the
money. The anger may have been partly due to the fact that Asif had proved the
money man wrong on Mughal-e Azam. He had sold the film to all distributors
throughout the country for Rs 1,500,ooo—and that without showing them the
film! Shapooiji got back his entire investment, even before the film was released!
Naushad says, “While Shapooiji’s family is stiU reaping the profits from the film.

K. Asif has earned nothing at all.” According to Naushad, Asif was given a paltry
salary from Shapooiji. “A generous man, he would give away most of his salary
to anyone in need. He was a simple man and would only sleep on a mat.”

Asif, however, knew how to use money to lure unlikely artists and this was
brilliantly demonstrated in his recruitment of Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan
for two songs Naushad wanted him to sing in the film. The moment Naushad
mentioned his name, Asif readily agreed, and it proved a sensation.

Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan was one of the finest representatives of the
Hindustani music tradition in the twentieth century and, even as early as 1944,
was considered the uncrowned king of Hindustani music, with some people
going so far as to refer to him as the Tansen of the twentieth century. Having
lived at various times m Lahore, Mumbai, Kolkata and Hyderabad, he returned
to his home in Pakistan, but came back to India some time afterwards. When
Asif approached him, it was not long after he had become an Indian citizen.
However, classic musicians like him shunned film music which they thought
was beneath them.

Asif and Naushad visited the home of the great man, who was known as Khan
Saab. Naushad recaUs:

Khan Saab loved eating, and the more people, the merrier. We arrived in time for
a meal. On seeing us, he asked us for the reason for our visit. 1 explained the reason.
But he refused point blank, as he found singing in films very frivolous. ‘Naushad
saab,’ he said, ‘three minutes was not enough for anybody to sing, especially people
like me who need at least half and hour to clear my throat.’

At this point Asif, who was watching the proceedings, spoke. “Only you will
sing those songs in my film. It will only be you,” he said. Khan saab was very
angry and asked Naushad about the “gustaakh” (sinner). Naushad introduced Asif
to Khan saab and said he was the director of the film. Ali Khan had heard of the
making of Mughal-e Azam but thought little of it and would not budge, and nor
would Asif Finally, Naushad took Khan saab a.side and tried to convince him.
But to no avail. He told him that if he refused to sing, he would fall in the eyes
of the director. Khan saab came up with a plan that would help Naushad keep
his respect. He would, he told Naushad, ask so much money that Asif just would
not be able to afford him. Khan saab returned to the room and told Asif that he
would sing but he would charge Rs25,000 per song, expecting Asif to say this
was an impossible sum for a couple of songs.

To everybody’s surprise, Asif not only agreed but also immediately produced
Rs 10,000 in cash and gave it to Khan saab. At the time most singers were paid
round RS300 for a song.

Later, Bade Ghulam Ali would say that another reason why he agreed was not
merely the money, but he feared for his life. As the great man had kept saying

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Naushad says, “While Shapooiji’s family is still reaping the profits from the film, merely the money, but he feared for his life. As the great man had kept saying

218

Bollywood: A History

Asif's Godot Finally Arrlvos

219

‘No’, Asif, a nervous man at the best of times, had started smoking cigarettes,
cupping them in his fingers in his characteristic fashion. As the smoke rose from
the fingers, Khan saab got so frightened that this lunatic, whom he had never
met before, would set his house on fire, he agreed he would sing just to get him
out of the house. The visitors were not offered any food or even tea, the sort of
discourtesy that is unforgivable in India, and hurriedly ushered out.

Recording the romantic song proved to be another feat in itself. Bade Ghulam
Ali Khan just failed to understand that it was a romantic song and that it needed
a soft tune and tone. The argument between Naushad and him continued all day.
Finally, Naushad summoned Asif, who arranged for the editing of the romantic
scene between Dilip Kumar and Madhubala overnight, and showed the film to
Khan saab.

Khan saab eventually understood the nuances of the scene and was very
impressed by the beauty of Madhubala. But, then, he decided that he would sing
along with the film and Naushad had to arrange for the recording accordingly.
Khan saab got so carried away that he sang continuously all day, till an exasperated
Naushad asked his assistant to stop recording. Undeterred, Khan saab continued
to sing late into the night. “It took me nearly four days to edit the song. But it
was worth it,” says Naushad.

Indians finally got to see Asif’s Godot on August 5, i960. The film was
premiered at Bombay’s Maratha Mandir. The cinema gleamed under dozens of
floodlights; it was the convergence point of streams of cars, of humming, pushing
waves of people, who exuded excitement that this movie, which they had been
told was being made for a decade, had finally been completed. Raj Kapoor
had flown back to Bombay only a few hours previously from Czechoslovakia.
Shammi Kapoor, who had been away on a tour of the Far East, had also timed
his return to be present at the premiere. And, as the crowds converged on the
cinema, the first thing they noticed was a huge portrait at the front of the
theatre—of a tall, well-built, imperious-looking man, dressed in Royal Mughal
robes. That was Prithviraj Kapoor. It had taken 500 shooting days, twenty years
from when it was first conceived, and Rs 15 million to produce.

Asif had planned the publicity well, with what contemporary newspapers
describe as a promotional pre-release extravaganza on a national scale. Nearly
forty-five journalists were flown from all over the country to Bombay and were
put up at the Taj Mahal Hotel for some days, previous to the premiere.

Filmfare reported on August 26, i960:

During the last fortnight K. Asif, creator & director of Mughal-e Azam, dominated
the Indian film scene with the most sensational release of his mammoth, long-
awaited film simultaneously at 150 cinema houses throughout India. The film
created records in several respects. In one week alone it collected Rs i lakh (Rs
100,000) by way of advance bookings. Eight days before the release of the film.

about sixty film critics of important daily newspapers and periodicals from all parts
of the country were flown to Bombay and taken to the Sheesh Mahal.

Sheesh Mahal, for several years, continued to remain the centre of attraction at
the Mohan Studios. Built by artisans from Ferozabad after the shooting, the set
was covered with a huge tarpauhn and was only shown to a select few people. It
attracted the attention of a rich Arab, who wanted to buy the Sheesh Mahal and
take it to his country, but Asif refused the offer, wanting to use the set for his next
film ‘Taj Mahal’. But this was never even started and he died before finishing the
film of the story of Lada and Majhu, entitled ‘Love & God’ which he had begun
after Mughal-e Azam. Asif only made three films in his hfe but, if he had done
nothing but Mughal-e Azam, he would deserve a chapter in Bollywood history.
Garga is absolutely right when he writes, “There is no denying Asif’s considerable
cinematic talents.. .The best of Mughal-e Azam has never been surpassed”

The film was originally released in black and white, apart from one colour
scene where Madhubala performs a song and dance routine with the words
of the song sung by Lata Mangeshkar. This was a defiant song of love which
Akbar, with Salim sitting next to him, listens in increasing rage. Asif re-shot this,
considered the greatest scene in the film, in colour later.

If Akbar’s cinematic rage was about his heir falling in love with a dancing girl
then there was a real life rage about the movie by the Pakistani authorities, as
Jimmy Mehta was to realise to his cost.

Jimmy Mehta was Pallonji’s son-in-law, a Davis Cup player and on the
executive committee of CCI, who later died in the Air India crash of 1978.
However, some time before that, he was on a visit to London. The British
Airways flight from Bombay in those days went via Karachi to Cairo and then
to London, and just before he left, his father-in-law suggested he stop in Karachi
and meet Zulfikar Bhutto, then foreign minister of Pakistan. Jimmy and Zulfi
were great friends, a friendship dating from before partition.

“Why not visit him? He is the foreign minister. You know we would love to
release Mughal-e Azam in Pakistan; maybe he can help.” Jimmy agreed and rang
his friend.

“Zulfi, this is Jimmy.”

“Jimmy, how are you?”

“I am coming to Karachi; my plane will be there for two hours at Karachi
airport. You send me a car. I shall meet up with you and then catch the flight
to London.”

At Karachi, Bhutto was at the airport to meet his old friend and took him to
his house. It was evening by then. He took him to a dark room, put the lights on
and revealed a hidden bar, Pakistan being a Muslim country where drinking was
frowned on. The two old friends drank whisky and reminisced about old times
and mutual friends. Then Bhutto asked, “Jimmy, what have you come for?”

22Q

Bollywood: A History

“Have you heard about Mughal-e Azam?"

“Yes.”

“My father-in-law was the producer. If this film is released in this country, then
the two countries will come close.”

What happened next was out of some horror movie. Jimmy would later teU
Raj Singh,“I could not believe it. His eyes became red. He banged the glass table
so hard I do not know how he did not break it. He said,‘Not for a thousand years
can these two countries become one. I shall catch you by the throat for making
such a suggestion’. He made a move towards me. I thought if he caught me he
would kill me. I started running. It was dark. I ran through several rooms. I did
not know where I was running. Ultimately, I came to the verandah, jumped into
the car and left. I was never so relieved to see the airport.”

In April 2006, forty-six years after Asif had finally finished his epic, Pakistan
lifted its ban on the movie, with a premiere in Lahore. Taj Mahal, the film Asif
wanted to make, but which a new generation of Bollywood film-makers had
made in 2005, was also screened. The decision was part of what was described
as a “confidence-building measure” between the two countries. The general
ban on Bollywood movies remained but Pakistan’s authorities, in justifying
the temporary lifting of the ban, said that neither film had “un-Islamic values”
and that both dealt with an era when the sub-continent’s Muslims were in the
ascendant.

How Asif would have laughed at those comments!

Part IV

A Laugh, a Song
and a Tear

The Explosion of the Bombay

Film Song

On April 14, 1944, huge explosions rocked Bombay’s docks.The immediate fear
was this was Japanese bombing. It turned out that a fire had broken out in a ship
loaded with cotton, timber, and ammunition, lying in the Bombay docks but,
such was the force of the fire, it gave the impression of a bombing raid. This was
the only damage the city suffered during the war, killing 500, injuring 2,000, and
destroying large amounts of shipping, food and stores.

On that day, as Bombay got to grips with the devastation, a 14-year-old girl
arrived in the city for the first time. Many years later the girl, now a very famous
and rich woman, would recall, “I arrived in Bombay on April 14, 1944. On that
day, there was a big blast in the Bombay docks. I was staying at Girgaum. There,
I was down with malaria. I was taken care of by Mrs Pendse, a neighbour.”

The woman who wrote that was Lata Mangeshkar. By the time she came to
write her autobiography, she had caused an even greater explosion in Bollywood,
although of an infinitely more welcome kind and one whose effects are still felt
in Indian cinema and which, in many ways, define the very special world that
is Bollywood.

There is nothing in Hollywood or, indeed, in the history of world cinema, to
compare with Mangeshkar for the simple reason there is nothing like the genre
of playback singing that forms the bedrock of Bollywood. But even within
Bollywood’s playback singing world, which has produced a number of male
and female stars of quite exceptional quality, Mangeshkar remains an astounding
phenomenon. Post-1947, ^nd the end of the era when actors and actresses also
sang, would see a number of talented male playback singers emerge, all seeking
to copy Saigal. This would include the big three male singers who dominated
the industry between 1950 and 1980: Mohammed Raft, Mukesh, and Talat
Mehmood. Kishore Kumar, another brilliant talent, was much more than a
mere singer. But Lata was almost on her own among the women and her only
competitor was her own sister, Asha, four years her junior. Lata’s dominance of
the Binaca Geet Mala chart list emphasises this. From 1953 to 1980, over a thirty-

inv. vjccL ivrara ciiarc use empnasises tnis. from 1953 to 1980, over a thirty-

The Explosion of the Bombay Film Song 223

seven year period, eleven singers shared the top of the chart position. Of these
eleven, seven were males, four females. Lata, on her own or as part of a duo with
a male singer, had ten hit songs; Asha, her nearest female competitor, had four.
As Indians say, only one Lata. Lata remains without a peer and defines the very
distinctive style of Bollywood cinema. In 1986, when India Today carried out a
survey to find who deserved a Padma Bhushan (a high honour awarded by the
state) for Art and Culture, the readers put Lata first, before Raj Kapoor, Amitabh
Bachchan, the writer R.K. Narayan, the dancer Mrinalini Sarabhai, the singer
Bhimsen Joshi and the painter, M.F. Hussain. She was later to win the award, and
many others, including India’s highest, the Bharat Ratna in 2001.

The Lata who arrived in Bombay on the day of that explosion, could not have
imagined the success she would have one day nor, even, that she would be a singer
for, at that time, she was an actress as well. Indeed, she had acted in more films
than she had sung songs. She had come to Bombay for work, work she desperately
needed to keep herself and her family of six (three sisters and a brother all younger
than her and her mother) ahve. Two years earher, at the age of twelve, she had
become the breadwinner when her father, Dinanath Mangeshkar, died.

The story of Lata is the classic Indian Bollywood story of the daughter who
never marries, achieves huge success but always dedicates everything to the dead
father.

There is a story told of when Lata was nine. One morning Dinanath, an Indian
classical music singer, was teaching some students to sing. He told them, “I shall
have my bath and come back but you go on singing.” As he was having his bath
Lata came in and told the students, “That is not the way Baba told you to sing;
this is how he means you to sing.” She then proceeded to demonstrate. Dinanath
rushed out of the bath, barely covering himself with his bath towel, and told his
wife, “She is exceptional; and she will make my name. You will forget me. You
wiU never remember me only as Lata Mangeshkar’s father.”

Perhaps the story has been embellished in the endless retelling but Lata, and
her sister, Asha, always observe their father’s birth anniversary. In her Puja room,
she has the portrait of her father and, when she funded a hospital in Pune, it was
named Dinanath, the daughter paying homage to the father who taught her, but
never lived to see her make the family name a ‘legend’, the English word Indians
use to describe her.

The Mangeshkars had not always been poor and their history has been quite
colourful, reflecting the history of India.There was a suggestion that they should not
be called Mangeshkar at all.The forefathers of the Mangeshkars came from Somnath,
where they were devdasi (temple musicians and dancers) at the temple, which was
then the richest in India. Its wealth attracted the Muslim ruler, Mohammed of
Ghazni, whose annual winter habit was to plunder India. He invaded the country
every year for sixteen years at the beginning of the eleventh century. The story goes
that, after the sacking of the temple, and its wonderful treasures, by Mohammed,

that, after the sacking of the temple, and its wonderful treasures, by Mohammed,

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Bollywood: A History

The Explosion of the Bombay Film Song

225

Latas ancestors fled Somnath for the south and setded in Goa, in a place called
Mangesh, where there is a temple of Mangeshi, Shiva’s temple. Here they once again
resumed their service as devdasis. This is how the family got the nanre Mangeshkar.
There is, however, some evidence that the surname should have been Abhishekar.
Dinanath was an illegitimate child and there is an Abhisheki family in Mangesh, with
whom Lata and her family have always maintained an excellent relationship, Jitendra
Abhisheki having been a classical singer of repute.

Lata has always been cagey about her antecedents and, in her autobiography,
written in Marathi, her native language, there is no reference to all this.

The illegitimate Dinanath had to struggle at first but succeeded in training
as a classical singer and establishing himself in some style. The family moved
to Indore, where Lata was born, Dinanath having married a Gujerati lady
called Shevanti. Dinanath sang for the princely Holkar family and this was to
introduce Lata to some of India’s greatest cricketers, including C.K. Nayaudu,
India’s first Test captain. She developed a consuming interest in the game and a
companionship with Raj Singh, a former player and now a leading administrator
of the game in India.

Lata has never married and, although Bollywood gossip has long been that
she and Raj Singh are all but man and wife, Raj Singh has always denied such
rumours saying their close friendship is purely platonic. He tells a charming story
of her interest in cricket:

I may know the legend but I am not a musical man. Our friendship was not
based on music. In fact, she was more into cricket than I was into music. C.K.
Nayudu used to come to their house andVijay Hazare (another Indian cricketing
great) came regularly. She has a picture of Don Bradman (arguably the greatest
ever cricketer), which is signed, “To Lata, from Don.” She was given this when
she helped an Australian. When asked what he could do to repay her, she said she
would like to have Bradman’s picture. She also had a book signed by Keith Miller
(another great cricketer). Miller wrote in the book,‘To Lata’ and then was told to
write the word “Ji” (the suffix Indians use as a term of great respect), so he added
“Ji” separately, thinking it was a separate name.

Dinanath was not only an accomplished classical singer, but had a touring
drama company, which produced Marathi plays all over the state. He even
produced a film and, for a time after Lata’s birth, was well off, if not rich. It is
not exactly clear how the slide began but it seems drink had a major part to play,
both in his decline in fortune, and his health. In April 1942, at just 44, he died.
His death had a devastating effect on the family—from having been fairly weh
off they were now paupers and Lata, not yet 13, became the breadwinner.

Like many of that era in Bollywood, Lata had not gone to school. One story
has it that she went to school for one day but, when reprimanded by her teachers

for singing, she left in a huff. In fact, she probably did attend school for a little
longer than that, but for no more than a year or two. By the time her father
died, she was already quite an experienced performer. Indeed, a month before his
death, she sang for the Marathi film Kiti Hasaal (How Much Can you Make me
Laugh). Dinanath did not like that much as, like many Indian classical musicians,
he held film music in contempt, but was too ill to intervene. By this time. Lata
had taken part in plays, and won a nationwide competition held by Dalsukh
Pancholi to mark the success of his film, Khazanchi, the music for which was
composed by Pancholi’s feUow-citizen from Lahore, Master Ghulam Haider. He
had introduced the Punjabi dholak and drums in the film and followed this with
success in Khandaan, where Nur Jehan made her debut. These two films of the
early forties became trendsetters. Haider made a careful note of the young girl’s
talent. Her early singing had come from listening to her maternal grandmother’s
music. Its rhythm was shaped by the grinding of wheat and the Gujarat Garba
dancing. Lata also loved listening to Saigal and Nur Jehan but, above aU, there was
Dinanath tutoring and nurturing what was clearly a very great, inherited talent.
Lata’s autobiography is full of memories of her father—how he would wake her
early for riaaz (classical music practice) and get her to practise on the tanpura,
the stringed drone instrument used in Indian classical music.

Lata and her family were saved from destitution by a certain MrVinayak. He
had no surname because he was illegitimate and was known as Master Vinayak,
an accomplished comic actor. Later, he would become better known as the father
of actress Baby Nanda. He ran Prafull Pictures and, on the death of his friend,
Dinanath, he promised to look after his family and took them to Kholapur. It
was while Lata was in Kholapur that she acted in three Marathi films for Prafull
Pictures: Majha Baal (the whole Mangeshkar family Lata, Asha, her sisters and
brother sang in this film), foUowed by Chimukla Sansar, and Gajabhau. It was in
this film that she also sang her first Hindi song. Lata hated acting and in her
autobiography says, “I never liked to act in movies. I had a great passion for
music. But money had to be earned because I was poor.”

Vinayak was paying her Rs 80 a month, which was not much to maintain a
family of six and, in 1945, Bhalji Pendharkar, doyen of the Marathi film industry,
offered her Rs 300. But Vinayak persuaded her to stick with him. He brought
her back to Bombay in 1945. For a time she lived in Kumud Villas in Shivaji
Park, a couple of miles from Nur jehan. It was a year later, after having moved
house several times, that she gave up acting and concentrated on singing, her
first song in a Hindi movie being in Badi Maa (the Big Mother), in which Nur
jehan played the heroine.

It was to take one further turn of the wheel of fortune before Lata truly found
herself.Vinayak died in 1947, and things looked bleak. But, then, Ghulam Haider,
who had not forgotten her, took her to Filmistan to record a trial duet with
another singer. Sasadhar Mukeijee, in awe of Nur jehan, as almost everyone was

226

Bollywood: A Hisiory

The Explosion of the Bombay Film Song

227

then, was less chan impressed.' Her voice is too thin, he said, rejecting her as the
playback singer for Kamini Kaushal. Haider retorted, “Let me foretell today that
this kid will very soon put to shame everyone else, including Nur Jehan.” Haider
backed his judgement by using her in Majboor and then persuaded his friend,
Naushad, to use her in Andaz.

Her singing in Andaz was a seminal moment in her career. It was on the sets
o{ Andaz that Raj Kapoor heard her sing and decided he must have her voice
for his film, Barsaat. Soon, odier composers like Khemchand Prakash, composing
for Kamal Amrohi’s Mahal, followed. It had been six years since she had arrived
in Bombay on the day of the explosions; now she was ready to explode herself.

In fact. Lata Mangeshkar had timed her arrival in Bombay brilliantly. The
Bombay film song was just Caking off. Songs had been part of Indian films since
the days of the talkies, reflecting the enormous part music, song and dance play
in Indian daily life. Early films borrowed from Indian theatre and music directors
transplanted music and dance from stage to screen. But the war years had given
rise Co a very new phenomenon—the Bombay him song—something which had
never existed in India before.

Bhaskar Chandavarkar expertly analysed in The Tradition of Music in Indian
Cinema how the Bombay film song became the template, not only for film
music but also for music in India. He dates its emergence from 1944 . soon after
Lata first arrived in the city, making Bombay the song centre of India. From that
moment nobody could hope to record any song chat did not have harmony,
an assortment of voices with varied melodies and a large, colourful orchestra,
which symbolised the power of a music director. If Bengali composers like Anil
Biswas, Salil Chowdhury, the Burmans, both father and son, would play a huge
part in the development of the Bombay film song, then Indians from aU over the
country also contributed. Raj Kapoor’s composers, Shankar and Jaikishen, are a
classic illustration. They were actually two individuals: Shankar Raghuvanshini,
a Punjabi, born in Madhya Pradesh in central India, but raised in Andhra in the
south, and a fluent Telgu speaker, and Jaikishen Panchal, a Gujarati who, like
many, had migrated to Bombay. So had O.P. Nayyar, who was born in Lahore,
and Madan Mohan, who was born in Baghdad, where his grandfather was Rai
Bahader Chunilal, a colleague of Himansu Rai and, later, Ashok Kumar.

According to Chandavarkar, the Bombay song was fast-paced, often higher
in pitch, used more musical instruments and was better organised in musical
composition than most other songs. Each song lasted three minutes and twenty
seconds and could be put on a yBrpm disc and, if necessary, recorded on both
sides. Like Indian food, the Bombay song had everything in the Indian musical
lexicon: ragas and semi-classical thumris of Northern India, and folk songs from
all over India. Saigal had used the Urdu ‘ghazal’ form, a light serm-classical Indian
song form originating in Persia. It was, and remains, hugely popular in North
India and Pakistan.Although the ghazal was heavily influenced by Muslim culture.

it was also popular with Hindus, showing how the two communities produced
a common musical culture. The Bombay film song took this even further as it
synthesised a variety of musical elements, including bhajans, quawwalis, and Latin
American and Western ones, to create an essentially Bollywood genre.

Earlier male singers, who were more linear, were displaced, helped by the fact
that Saigal died in 1947. The music demanded more delicate voices, and singers
such as Pankaj Mullick, K.C. Dey, and Pahari Sanyal, all Bengalis, incidentally,
were overtaken by Rafi, Mukesh, Manna Dey, and Talat Mehmood. The post-
1947 films often incorporated the word naya (new) in their titles to indicate the
new, free country that had emerged. Their characters sang while riding bicycles
and horses, and driving cars. This was all indicative of the new fast pace of
Bombay, stamping itself as the cosmopolitan New York of India.

Films such as Kismet and Rattan also helped shape the Bombay song. Kismet
made Anil Biswas into one of the more remarkable composers of BoUywood.
Born in Barisal, then East Bengal, just before the First World War, he was
revolutionary and was often jailed by the British. He worked with the great
Bengali poet, Kazi Nazrul Islam. He moved to Bombay where he demonstrated
his innovative use of trumpets, saxophone, piano, and even the sounds made by
trains, to make music that appealed across the castes and classes of India.

He had worked on the songs of Basant, helping his brother-in-law, Pannalal
Ghosh. He showed a mastery of beat, using it to introduce a slow and unfolding
melody, which flowed into all sorts of exciting passages. Biswas could create
emotion without being sentimental. One could trace Bhatiali (folk song of East
Bengal) roots in many of his melodies. The rhythms of his songs were Bengali-
inspired yet, through his imaginative use of the orchestra, he avoided the folksy,
laid-back, mood.

The story goes that, once he was driving with a song writer in Bombay. The
song writer made an unscheduled stop to visit someone for a few minutes.
He gave Biswas a piece of paper with a lyric of a song he had written, hoping
he would think about a tune for it. When he returned, he found Biswas had
composed the tune, and he sang the song to the accompaniment of the steering
wheel as a percussion instrument.

Naushad, like Ghulam Haider, used the dholak but mixed it with a double bass
and tabla. He brought in a vibraphone and set it up next to a sarangi, brought in
folk tunes fixim his native Uttar Pradesh, hired new lyric writers and exploited
the chorus in his songs. Naushad understood the needs of the post-'var Indian
audience, which wanted modernity and freshness—something sweet and simple.

However, m order to create the Bombay song these composers, mostly
schooled in Indian classical music, were rewriting the musical history that had
existed for centuries and was so very different from Western music.

The music that Hollywood used in its films was a progression of the Western
musical traditions which had lasted for well over five hundred years by the time

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cinema arrived. This included great musical composers, who also wrote for
both ballet and opera. There were huge musical differences between Mozart,
Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Wagner but they all composed operas, ballets, and
symphonies in the classical tradition of European music. A Western musical
performance generally had an orchestra and a score, which provided a record of
the performance and which could even be sold. The great musical composers of
the West had left behind a treasure trove of music which the cinema drew upon.
So, Western films incorporated classics, such as Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and
Tchaikovsky suites, to accompany the romantic scenes shown on the screen.

Things could not be more different in India. For a start, Indian classical
musicians looked down upon the music of the theatre, which formed the basis
of early Indian films.

And, at that stage, India’s classical music was in very poor shape. Much of this was
raga music, presented through khayal songs, written and composed centuries earlier,
but sung in a sort of Hindi dialect that was understood by only a few. It could be
argued that this is true ofWestern opera but there, words can be separated fiom the
music. In India, this was just not on. There was a strong religious background to
classical Indian music, and a kriti in the South, or a khayal in the North, were taught
and learned by musicians with devotional fervour. There were gharanas (schools) of
singers for whom the unfolding of the raga had hardly any independent existence
outside of the khayal handish (handed-down composition of both melody and words).
This also meant that independent instrumental music was ruled out. Instruments
imitated voices. Indian orchestra in the Western sense did not exist.

There was, of course, folk music, but in the early days of film there were not
many links between an urban-based cinema and the largely rural folk music,
often confined to small communities who had little awareness of the wider
world. The continental nature of India meant the folk songs of Bengal did not
reach those of Punjab, in the north or Madras, in the south.

From the beginning, cinema forced Indian musicians to change. Even in the
days of the silent movies, when musicians played in halls, they had learnt to
adjust. The duration and tempo of the ghazal on the harmonium had to suit
the film the musician was accompanying. This in itself was a highly rebellious
act since a classically trained Indian musician would have learnt from his ustad
(guru) that nothing could deviate from the mehfil which had been created—a
performance meant for the elite few. Cinema was challenging that.

But this began to change as the twentieth century dawned. Indian classical
music changed when Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande and Vishnu Digambar
Paluskar started the renaissance of north Indian classical music in the first decades
of the twentieth century. The invention of the gramophone, and its arrival in
rural India, like television nearly eighty years later, revolutionised both rural
life and Indian music. For the first time, Indian classical music had an existence
outside the performance on the stage or in the concert hall, in the darbars of

The Explosion of the Bombay Film Song

229

rajas, nawabs and zamindars. The gramophone made music a highly saleable
commodity. Classical records began to be produced and ragas and songs had to
be restricted to fit onto one side of the disc. And, for the first time in Indian
musical history, a musician performed without an audience being present. The
gramophone, or phonograph, as it was called, could be heard by millions across
the sub-continent, cutting through the rigid musical caste barriers that had
previously existed. This was what the Bollywood film was trying to do, and
the Bombay film song was an essential part of this armoury. The requirement
here was for a short song that would appeal as much to northern as southern
India; where people might know little of the Hindi language the film was made
in—their mother tongue being Bengali, Punjabi, Tamil, or Telugu—but could
tap their toes to the music.

In the classical Indian musical tradition, the audience plays a part, unlike in
Western classical music. Indian classical music performances are like a continuous
dialogue with the audience. A performance of classical Western music takes place
in front of an audience but the audience has to be silent until it is over. It is
conceivable it could even take place without one. Not so in India.

As opposed to the Western conductor and his orchestra following the written
music in front of them, in an Indian classical music performance an individual
might sing, compose and be his own orchestra. Unless, and until, he takes great
pleasure in his own art, he is not going to keep the audience entranced. This
makes Indian music very individualistic, while the Western one is more collective,
following a score and based on team-work, led by the conductor. During the
performance, there is no scope for individual variation, no scope for intuition as
the music is being played. The audience goes to listen to a particular composition
knowing what to expect.

The Indian tradition had created teachers—gurus and ustads—not composers.
Ustads, for example, created bandishes or compositions that taught a student the
principles of a raga which, in turn, would continue to be cultivated and refined
as the bandishes were handed down to the next generation. A performer like
Ravi Shankar does not perform with an orchestra. He has disciples and, as he
performs, he is giving them lessons on how to perform in public. Of course,
before the performance he has tutored them and made sure they are ready for
such a public display. During the performance, his disciples on sitar will respond
to him and he will go on teaching them in public. No conductor in Western
music would ever conceive of such an idea. This means that, as opposed to the
organised collective face a Western classical music performance represents, Indian
music is intuitive, individualistic, and also very anarchic.

This is best seen when there are duets in Indian classical music which can
result in one musician throwing a challenge to the other. Something like a
musical fencing match, with each in turn taking inspiration from the other,
and also seeing the other’s performance as a challenge. Watch the two brothers

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Nazakat Ali Khan and Salamat Ali Khan perform classical music. They sing
together. As one sings, the other responds and takes the note further, then he
waits for his brother to come back, and so it goes on.

Unlike Western musical pieces, which often end in a crescendo, Indian music is
circular, performing an avartan (a circular return). In an avartan you start from one
point. You take the whole taan (a rhythmic combination of notes of a particular
scale called a raga), and then you complete the circle and arrive at the same point
again. Indian classical music has three parts in the presentation. Slow tempo ‘alap,’
where the raga (scale) is introduced. In instrumental presentation, this is done
without tabla accompaniment. Then, a medium tempo composition (called Jodh
in instrumental presentation), which is performed with tabla and tans, is mostly
used here. Lastly, a fast tempo composition (Jhala, in case of instruments) where the
raga is presented at a very fast speed. The last section can be called a ‘crescendo’,
but the theme is always to come back to the ‘central point’ of the scale. From alap
to the end of the presentation it could go on for an hour or more. The basic core
of Indian classical music is that you say you are in the circle.

Classical Indian music also has its gharanas (schools), with each gharna having its
own tradition. So, there is the Gwalior gharana, Kirana gharana,Jaipur gharana, Agra
gharana, Mawati gharana, and Maihar gharana, which is Ravi Shankar’s gharana.
The differences are in presentation. There is one raga,Yaman, sung by practically
every gharana. It has got its own framework but that framework is slightly different
with each gharana. Classical Indian music enthusiasts would immediately recognise
the different gharanas. The singer has only to start for the audience to say, “He is
from Gwalior gharana,” for instance, signifying a tradition that has come down the
generations and was a fusion of Hindu and Muslim musical traditions.

With classical Indian music not having a concept of notation, it was film songs
with many hundreds being sung every year that forced Indians to note music
down, since it was impossible to remember every tune. A musical piece also had
to be planned and composed—it could not depend on inspiration or impromptu
improvisation.

The fusion of the popular and the classical with Western music was the result
of India’s greatest literary figure, Rabindranath Tagore, who was well versed in
both Western and Indian music, taking to singing. In 1900, he had sung Bankim
Chandra’s Vande Mataram for a recording. In 1920, his voice was recorded on
ySrpm records. Tagore’s songs created a new genre which is called Rabindra
Sangeet, the music of Rabindranath Tagore, and were a source of inspiration
for many singers, such as Pankaj MuUick and K.C. Dey. They fused Bengali
folk songs with the use of instruments like the piano and the organ. So, from
the beginning of sound in films, the music showed the Bengali influence along
with the theatrical Navtanki style derived from Parsi theatre, and Hindustani
music, brought in from Maharashtra, and the early stage plays. Film music also
broke down the rigid barrier between classical and popular music. Ravi Shankar

directed music for Neccha Nagar and Dharti Ke Lai. Ali Akbar Kan, the sarod
maestro, made music for Andhian and other films. Nikhil Banneijee, Halim Jaffer
Khan, Ram Narain,Vilayat Khan, Bismillah Khan and Shanta Prasad all helped
to create melodious songs for film. They joined all sorts of musicians, some from
hotel bands and restaurants, others from the army and still other folk-artists, as
film music directors looked for new sounds for their orchestras.

In Indian classical music such mixing would have been like an untouchable
dining with the upper castes in the worst days of the Hindu caste system.

Indian musicians were also raiding the world for musical instruments. India
had already shown how eclectic it could be in adapting to musical instruments
from far and wide. The harmonium, now considered an Indian instrument,
and practically forgotten in the West, was brought to India by the Jesuits in the
seventeenth century. Pannalal Ghosh, who later left films, was a virtuoso flautist.
Sajjad Hussein, an eccentric and hot-tempered but gifted composer, made
much use of the mandolin, which originated in Italy. It could easily pass as an
eastern instrument and Hussein’s lead was followed by others. The introduction
of sound did see one Western instrument fall by the wayside. The clarinet had
been brought by British army bands and used for music in cinema halls showing
silent movies. The music for the Prabhat emblem, a melody in Raga Bhupali, was
played in E flat on a high- pitched clarinet while, on the screen, a slim, young
girl arched backwards as she blew on the traditional Maharashtrian shing (horn).
But it could not make the transition to Indian sound.

The Hawaiian guitar, which closely resembled the vichitra veena of the north,
and gottuvadyam of the south was, probably, the first electric instrument in the
film orchestra. A small microphone, the size of a rupee coin, could be attached
to the belly of the guitar. This was called the contact mike. The amplified sound
was loud, clear and sustained. Everything that a human voice could do, could
be melodically reproduced by the electric guitar. Various composers and singers
used it and Sachin Dev Burman, another Bengali from east Bengal, who had
been trained in classical music, but was also familiar with folk music, used the
electric guitar in his earlier songs. Burman also brought the east Bengal style
of singing where what Bengalis called the thakha (push) was employed when
singing to give the impression the singer was literally performing a thrusting
motion as he sang. The piano accordion came to India after the Second
World War and in Awara, Shankar-Jaikishen used it for the song ‘Awara Hun’
that became known around the world. The accordion worked a lot like the
harmonium and, being a portable reed/wind instrument, street performers often
strapped their harmoniums around their neck. The accordion would become a
popular instrument in film songs, with many composers using it. Claviolin, an
instrument that had a keyboard and sounded like a violin and which has been
converted into an electric organ, also came after the Second World War. It was
used by Kalyanji Veeiji Shah for the songs in the film Nagin, one of many films

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where the song remained in memory far longer chan the film. His use of the
instrument was extremely clever to help simulate the sound of a snake-charmer’s
pipe, a German invention reproducing something uniquely Indian.

The Indians also used castanets, rattles, bells and drums—they have many kinds
of drums (which keep the timing and rhythmic cycles of their music). All drums
played with vocal and instrumental music are played with the hands. The tabla
is most common of them. Martial and folk event drums are played by sticks,for
example, the ‘dholok’. As Bhaskar Chandavarkar says, the list of instruments
was endless and represented every continent on earth. Foreign instruments and
their unique sounds were combined with traditional Indian sounds. It was this
blending that created unique harmonies which became an integral part of Indian
music and contributed to the great Bombay film song we know today.

One composer who could combine many elements was Salil Chowdhury
who, like many Bengalis of his generation, having seen suffering during the
Bengal famine, was a man of the left and as part of the IPTA composed songs for
the Communist party. Many years later he would say,“...the primary emotion
that burned deep inside me was one of fierce protest. I railed against the torment
and cruelty that was killing humanity little by little.” Called to Bombay by Bimal
Roy, where he provided music for Do Bigha Zamin, he went on to establish the
reputation of a music man who knew how to combine various elements, both
Indian and Western. Lata, in a rare, fulsome passage in her memoirs, would say:

Salil-da had something different in his composition. He had a wonderful ear for
folk music. He had a wonderful ear for Mozart, Beethoven, Bach and he had made
good use of it in his songs. In one song in Cliaaya,‘Yitm Na Muze Paaar Bada’, he
has used everything of Mozart, Beethoven and Bach.

Salil Chowdhury, who also wrote the screen play for films like Do Bigha
Zamin, impressed Lata with the care he took during the recording of songs,
making sure he was in the recording booth, not in the singing area.

Lata’s praise of Salil Chowdhury was not just fawning. He has the distinction
of getting Dilip Kumar to sing and, in effect, become his own playback singer.
Kumar, like all Indian actors, did not sing but had been influenced by classical
music, studied the sitar and the violin but also wanted to make sure about the
songs that singers were recording for him. He would attend recording sessions.
During the making of Bimal Roy’s Madhumati, where Chowdhury was the
music director, he was watching the recording of a song and started humming
the tune.yUthough at that moment Chowdhury became irritated and asked him
to stop, he was struck by the fact that Kumar was quite melodious. So perhaps
he could sing? There was no scope for that in Madhumati.

However, Dilip Kumar was also playing the lead role in the film, Musafir,
which was being made by Bimal Roy’s chief assistant, Hrishikesh Mukenee. DiUo

Kumar had played a major part in getting Mukeqee to make the film. Kumar had
always been impressed with Mukerjee’s editing and one day suggested he should
direct his own films. But Mukeqee was not sure anyone would finance it. Dilip
Kumar offered to listen to the story he wanted to make and went to his house,
where he was a paying guest. Kumar found a room with names, dates and grafEti
scribbled on the walls. Mukeijee narrating the story said the film would be about
three couples who had all lived in the same room. Kumar liked the story and
agreed to act, irrespective of how much Mukerjee might pay. With Kumar on
board, Mukeijee now had a saleable idea.

The role required Ddip Kumar to play his usual tragic character, but it also
involved him playing the violin at one stage. Salil Chowdhury, who was the music
director, suggested to Hrishikesh Mukeijee that Kumar might also sing. They both
went to his Pali Hill home to put the idea to him. Initially he refused, “Humming
a tune is different but, rendering it as a singer, requires aptitude and skill.” However,
Chowdhury was persistent and Kumar agreed. Chowdhury arranged a song session
to test his new prot%e and advised him to “sing the tunes with an open voice, the
same way in which he was humming at the time of the Mahdumati song recording.”
Kumar was so nervous that he hummed the first few lines with his eyes closed.
Chowdhury then summoned the lyricist, Shailendra, and got him to compose the
words to match the tune. The song had been planned as a solo but Kumar was so
nervous that he wanted an orchestra or a chorus. Chowdhury could sense Kumar
was nervous and got Shailendra to shorten the song. Chowdhury ruled out a
chorus or orchestra, as he felt this would make Kumar even more nervous. Instead,
he suggested that Lata should sing a duet with Dilip. There followed a number of
rehearsals which boosted Dilip Kumar’s confidence and the final recording session
went smoothly. Chowdhury would later consider this a higlilight of his musical
directorship to “become the only musical director to record a song with the voice
of Dilip Kumar.”

There is a photograph showing Lata Mangeshkar and Dilip Kumar sharing
a mike as the song is recorded, a photo which must be unique in the annals
of BoUywood—the voice legend meeting the love legend, albeit in one brief
song.

Lata’s own musical upbringing shows the mixture of musical influences by no
means uncommon in Bollywood. Following her father’s advice, she learned from
Indian classical musicians, deepening her knowledge of ragas. She particularly
liked musicians such as Bade Ghulam All Khan, who was equally proficient
in Indian classical music, as well as thumbri and ghazal. After Dilip Kumar
suggested that her Urdu accent was less than perfect, she worked on it and,
later, also learned Bengali and sang Bengali songs, impressing even the finicky
Bengalis, who can be very possessive about their language which they consider
the sweetest in the world. She also took to Western music although not Western
classical. In her autobiography, she says;

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I don’t like opera singing. But I like Bing Crosby. The Western singer I like most
is Nat King Cole because he had that wonderful, husky voice, that would identify
him with the audience immediately. 1 never had the chance of meeting Nat King
Cole; he was dead before I went to America.

In the 1960s, as the Beatles emerged, Lata Mangeshkar became a fan:

People say the Beatles are a fad. But 1 don’t think so.They have their own style.
There is no country in the world where the Beatles are not imitated.They have taken
many things from different parts of the world and they have created their own style.

If you listen to the Beatles properly, you get a feel of old Roman music. Sometimes,
you get a feel of Indian music, sometimes you get a feel of Assamese folk songs. On
the face value you may feel it is a bad thing but, no, there is inner soul to the Beatles’
music. Moreover, they are more experimental. The Beades took lessons on sitar from
Ravi Shankar and they impart that sitar into their music.That is their greatness.

By now, the Bombay film song had become the Indian song, with a song
for every situation—romance, laughter, sadness, cabarets, eroticism—important
in a country where the censor did not allow kissing on the screen. And, in the
process, the singers became India’s pop stars. Radio Ceylon’s Bianca Geet Mala,
which broadcast Hindi film songs, became the nation’s Top of the Pops. The
songs lived on long after the films had been forgotten and Indian movie-goers
had made it clear that a film without song was not worth going to.

It is interesting to contrast with Hollywood.The theme tune of Pretty [Voman
is the Roy Orbison song composed quite independently of the film, but used
brilliantly to shape the message of the film. In Bollywood, on the other hand, the
songs were created for the films but then acquired a life of their own.The singers,
led by Lata, became pop stars with their own fan clubs and devotees.

Mukesh Chand Mathur, known as Mukesh, the singing voice of Raj Kapoor, for
instance, had fans ranging from the great Indian cricketer, Bhagwat Chandrashekar,
to the former Pakistan Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto—Chandra hstened to
Mukesh’s music during that dramatic day in August 1971 when he bowled India to
her first ever victory in a cricket Test on English soil and a tape of Mukesh always
accompanied Benazir on her car rides while Prime Minister.

Through the 1950s, actors, music composers and lyricists formed very distinct
groups in Bollywood. Raj Kapoor always used Shankar-Jaikishen and lyricists
Shailendra, a very committed socialist, and Hasrat Jaipur!. Dfiip Kumar worked with
Naushad and lyricist Shakeel Badayuni, while Dev Anand’s composer was often S.D.
Burman and lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi. Not that there was no crossover. In Bimal Roy’s
Devdas, in 1956, Dilip Kumar played the lead, S.D. Burman provided the music and
Sahir Ludhianvi, the lyrics. But, generally, the groups stuck together, aware they were
working to a formula and the trick was to repeat the formula every time.

Over the years, the popularity of various composers would change and in
1975, for instance, out of eighty-nine films made m Bombay, forty-four had
scores by only three composing teams: Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Kalyanji-Anandji,
and R.D. Burman.

With song had also come dance, adapting Bharat Natyam, the dance the
devdasis, Lata’s ancestors, performed. Back in 1948, LJday Shankar had made an
attempt to represent the complete dance film, Kalpana, in an effort to rehabilitate
the classical dance. But, outside Bengal, it failed although it had inspired Vasan
to make Chandralekha.

But in 1955, Shantaram took the dance theme to make his first Technicolor
film, just two years before Mehboob got his onto the screen. He had a number
of failures just before that and, at that very moment, was temporarily working in
the Government’s Films Division, producing a film on the folk dances of India.
Shantaram decided to have an abundance of dance with what his son admits was a
paper-thin story and just “an excuse to unleash an extravaganza of exquisite song
and dance sequences.’’ Shantaram wanted all the colours to be done in India but
the result did not please the critics.The costumes for the dancers clashed with the
background and his fountains, producing multi-coloured water, one critic said,
“blinded the senses.” But he knew his Indian audience. Jhanak Payal Baaje

(jingle. Jingle, Sound the anklet Bells), was the first Hindi film to be shown at
Metro in Bombay (now Mumbai), which used to be a haven for Hollywood films.
It ran in one theatre for 104 weeks and was voted the best picture in the Filmfare
Awards. It also won him the President’s Gold Medal.

Interestingly, Shantaram had turned down Vyjayanthimala as the leading lady,
instead going with Sandhya who, in his previous film. Teen Batti CItaar Raasta,
had agreed to darken-up to play a dark-coloured girl, and to illustrate the colour
prejudice of Indians. But she was always much more of a dancer and soon
became yet another of Raj Kapoor’s heroines, combining Bharat Natyam dance
steps, with Khatak dance and Bhangra. a Punjabi folk dance, in the film New
Delhi. There were other films which showed cabaret dancing where Western,
mainly Anglo-Indian, dancers like Cuckoo and Helen achieved stardom in their
own right. Cabaret dancing, however, portrayed women as vamps or victims.

Another form of dancing was used as part of the courtesan film genre,and
was well-established and respected in ancient India. This dancing prevailed in
all the royal courts of India but, as the legend of Anarkali shows, it was also
considered not much above the position of a prostitute and would never be
admitted to high society, or gam wide social acceptance. Yet courtesan films
were very influential in the careers of some famous actresses, including Meena
Kumari, Vyjayanthimala, Sharmila Tagore and Rekha, whose Umrac Jaan Adda,
made in 1981, told the story of a thirty-year-old abducted and sold to a brothel.
It is considered the quintessential courtesan film of Bollywood. Rekha portrays
a woman who becomes an accomplished poet and singer. The sets are lavish, the

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music enchanting, and Rekha quite stunning. This was Muzaffar Alis second film
and continued to show his interest in the past. The setting was the independent
kingdom ofAudh, before it was annexed by the British East India Company. But,
like Jhanak,Jhartak, while the critics panned it, the cinema-goers loved it.

Films about courtesans and dancing were not new. In 1971, Kamal TVmrohi had
made Pakeezah, which was also set in Lucknow, where Meena Kumari played the
courtesan, seeking love and not finding it. Amrohi, her husband in real hfe, was
then estranged from her. Meena Kumari was dying, and the film, full of heartbreak,
seemed to be reflecting her hfe. Meena Kumari was so ill that she could not
perform ah the intricate mujra dances the film required. To be fair, she was not that
much of a dancer and there had to be a sort of playback dancing sequence where
the dance for the chmactic song, sung by Lata, was actually performed by Padma
Khan, pretending to be Meena Kumari. A veil hid her face.

The film, with a beautiful score by Ghulam Mohammed, revealed the
perfectionist in Amrohi. He had started making it in 1959, shades of Mughal-e
Azam here, leasing an Anomorphic lens which was attached to a 35mm camera.
The film was sent to be processed in London but Amrohi said it was out of focus.
Twice it was sent back. Finally, says his son, a comrmttee in the US found it to
be out of focus by i/ioo of a second, “So impressed was twentieth Century that
they gifted iny father the lens.”

The film was to show the power of Bollywood, cutting across even the bitter
political divide of the sub-continent. This was demonstrated in 1973 in Simla
when Indira Gandhi and Zulikar Ali Bhutto, the Pakistani Prime Minister,
met to sign the Simla Accords. This followed the 1971 Bangladesh war when
India had defeated Pakistan in battle and helped create Bangladesh. During the
protracted negotiations in Simla, Bhutto and his entourage required a screening
of Pakeezah, and this was arranged. Bhutto may very nearly have killed Jimmy
Mehta for suggesting Mughal-e Azam be shown in Pakistan but Pakeezah, with
its tale of the old dying Mughal, world appealed to him.

Lata sang for both Vyjayanthimala and Meena Kumari and the contrasts she
sees in them are interesting. For Meena Kumari, widely considered one of
BoUywood’s great actresses, she has nothing but admiration in her memoirs.
Vyjayanthimala is treated very differently.

Meena Kumari was one of three heroines of whose acting she says she had
to take notice and sing accordingly. The other two were Nargis and Nutan who,
according to Lata, could emote as well as Meena Kumari. Nutan had an ear for
music and could sing, unlike Nargis or Meena Kumari, neither of whom had a
singing voice:

Whenever I used to sing for Meena Kumari, naturally I used to go into that
particular role. She was known as the tragedy queen. All her songs were very sad
songs and I like sad songs.

songs and I like sad songs.

Yet, on Vyjayanthimala, Lata could not be more damning of her ability to act:

She did not have good pronunciation as far as Hindi and Urdu were concerned.

She used to portray herself as more sexy than she was in various dance sequences.

Vyjayanthimala was certainly not like Nargis, the first Raj Kapoor actress Lata
sang for, and of whom she says:

She had the uncanny art of knowing the meaning of song, how to project on
screen and how to act. Whenever I used to sing for Nargis, I had to take care of
everything that was happening on screen. When I sang for her for the first time in
Andaaz, tod diya dil mera ( my heart is broken), and Nargis was going to project it
onto the screen, I had to take care that my singing matched her acting. Again, I sang
a song for her in Raj Kapoor’s AahAre Raja ki ayegi barat.The hero is down with
TB. And she knows about it; he is neglecting her, he is not taking notice of her, he
is going to die and stiU she sings Raja ki ayegi fearaf.There, I really gave justice to that
particular song and, equally,justice was given by Nargis in her acting.

Was her less-than-enthusiastic endorsement ofVyjayanthimala because she did
not entirely approve of how Raj Kapoor handled Lata, and the resulting split this
provoked between Kapoor and Mangeshkar?

Kapoor’s Barsaat had given Lata an all-Indian profile and there was now a
wonderful chemistry between film-maker and singer. After she had recorded the
songs in Barsaat she, along with Raj Kapoor and others, had sat on the pavement
outside R.K. Studios, wondering how it would fare. For Awara, where she sang
from nine in the evening until dawn the next day, she joined Kapoor, Shankar
and Jaikishen to eat at what was called an Irani restaurant (a restaurant run by
immigrants from Iran). Lata, like Raj Kapoor’s actresses, only wore white saris
with coloured borders, and Raju Bharatan, one of her biographers, says, “Lata in
white was, for Raj, a replica of Nargis in white; somewhere the voice and vision
merged.”

Was there perhaps a suggestion of love here? Madhu Jain talks of a special
relationship but whether this was love, it is hard to say. What is much more
certain is that the feeling she had for another composer, who was not part of the
Kapoor film circuit but, according to Bhau Marathe, who witnessed the events
at close hand, was the love Lata has never spoken about.This was the composer,
C. Ramchandra.

C. Ramchandra was a Brahmin from Maharashtra, whose antecedents
are shrouded in mystery. It is not certain where he was born but he had his
basic training in classical music in Pune and then, Nagpur. At birth, he was
Ramchandra Narhar Chitalkar and had sung in films under that name.as well as
various others. But, on becoming a composer, he did what is more usual for an

various others. But, on becoming a composer, he did what is more usual tor an

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The Explosion of the Bombay Film Song

239

actor or actress. He decided to take the name, C. Ramchandra, neatly reversing
his given names. Today he is virtually a forgotten name, except to writers of
Bollywood film music, yet he was one of the four pillars of the melody school
that developed in the 1950s, the others being Anil Biswas, Madan Mohan and
Roshan Lai Nagrath, who was known just by his first name. Chandravarkar, and
others, who have written about the Bombay film songs, have no doubt about
C. Ramchandra’s place. He could adapt anything from Natya Sangeet to Latin
American music, could add appropriate Indian ornamentation to Western or
Latin pieces and make the song instantly Indian.

Bhau Marathe knew him well. He lived next door to him and was part of his
family. He has no doubt that he made Lata the singer she is, and was also the
great love of her life:

C. Ramchandra was a wonderful music composer. He could judge the quality of
the voice, the tonal quality. He made Lata by bringing her out from the shadow of
Nur Jehan.When Lata came to playback singing, she was under the great influence
of Nur Jehan. She, herself, says she was imitating Nur Jehan. He told her;“You have
your own style of singing.You have got your own identity.You are Lata Mangeshkar.”
This emerged in Anarkali. Sasadhar Mukeijee, still not convinced of Lata’s abilities,
was insisting on Geeta Dutt, as playback singer for Anarkali. Sri Ramchandra put
his foot down. He said: Only Lata will sing for Anarkali.” It was in this film that
Lata sang Ramchandra s Ye Zindagi usse ki hai (My Life Belongs to Him), a love
song of total surrender. No second compromise. It was one of the best songs he had
composed and, m Anarkali, she found her identity as Lata Mangeshkar and escaped
the shadow of Nur Jehan.

What fascinated Ramchandra about Lata was that she had what he called a
blotting-paper memory. This meant she could absorb songs in a fraction of a
second. This was particularly important in those days as a song was recorded live;
there was none of the modern pre-mixing of sound. Today, a recording session
for a song means a pre-mixed sound track, with the singer singing on top of this
soundtrack. In those days, all the musicians including the composer, had to be
present in the studio as the song was recorded, and the singers sang with a live
orchestra. If something went wrong, the whole song had to be sung again. It was
common to take four or five hours to record one song. Once, a song sung by
Talat Mehmood for Sajjad Hussain had to have thirty-five takes. Lata, with her
blotting-paper memory, was a godsend for C. Ramchandra. Over time, the sheer
growth of film songs forced Indian musical directors to write down musical
compositions, something alien to the Indian musical tradition.

Unfortunately, C. Ramchandra lost the diary in which he had written a dozen
or so tunes for Lata to sing, giving both the words and the notations.

The bond between Lata and C. Ramchandra grew and Marathe says:

She wanted to marry him. He did not want to marry her. He was already married,
although he did not have children. This was in i 960 . I, myself, was li years old. I
spent my childhood at C. Ramchandra’s place near Shivaji Park in central Mumbai.

I have seen their relationship myself with my own eyes. I have a vivid memory of
him showing Lata how he wanted a song to be sung. The complete orchestra is
sitting in front of them. She stopped singing with C. Ramchandra from i 960 . They
might have had differences of opinion, I do not know. But she suddenly stopped and
she told everyone I am not going to sing with C. Ramchandra. The year following
C. Ramchandra’s parting with Lata, no producer came to him. That was the real
downfall of C. Ramchandra. She does not mention him in her book. She never
even utters the name. She has sung in programmes in India, as well as abroad, nearly
three to four songs of his but not a word has been mentioned who the composer
was. That to me indicates the feud. It was only many years later when she was
interviewed at the age of seventy-five on Star World that she uttered the word C.
Ramchandra. She said he was a good composer; a very talented person, who would
compose ten tunes for one song.

In contrast to this virtual silence on C Ramchandra, in her memoir
Mangeshkar lavished praise on two other composers. Anil Biswas also helped
her emerge from of the shadow of Nur Jehan, and taught her how to control
her breathing. Sahl Chowdhury also hugely impressed Lata with his eclecticism
and his ability to compose songs that mixed Bengali folk songs with Western
classical music.

In his autobiography, C. Ramchandra does not mention Lata but mentions a
woman called Sita, whose story reads very like Lata’s.

Was this perhaps Lata’s ability to be ruthless with people who had crossed
her? Manek Premchand, in Yesterday’s Melodies Today’s Memories, which has short
biographies of the significant composers and musical directors of Bollywood
going back to the start of sound, contrasts the public Lata, endlessly praised as
the legend, with the private one, who is distrusted and feared:

Over the decades, there have been strong rumours of Lata using subtle, but
powerful, methods to scuttle the careers of many singers... Also, after a few years of
success. Lata became the only singer consistently to arrive last for recordings. Only
when everyone was present could she be called by telephone for the recording. Of
course, she was known to cancel recordings at the very last minute, much more
than many other singers, entailing losses for producers... So how, and why, did
people allow her to get away with it? It was simple: because of her voice... Producers
laughed aU the way to the bank. Composers and writers of songs valued this perfect
link—her vocals—in their creative chain. Actresses became successful because of her
voice; musicians got work. And the pubhc got to hear a divine voice, often singing
beautiful melodies, many of them unforgettable in our lifetimes.

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241

Premchand’s book is homage to the singers and composers of Bollywood but,
while acknowledging the greatness of Lata, his essay on her is also the bleakest,
and he concludes that there are two Latas; the public one, that enchants, and the
private one, that appals.

The stories against her are, of course, familiar stories of the prima donna. Maria
Callas did much worse and Lata may be forgiven for travelling first-class while
her entourage travelled at the back of the bus.

In a sense, the criticism of Lata Mangeshkar is due the fact that she has always
had a shrewd sense of her own worth and has not been bashful in making the
most of it. In a country where the culture is not to ask for money up front. Lata
has been an exception. Before Lata, the norm was for singers to be paid a flat
fee. But these songs would then be released by a music company and sold in
their millions. Lata demanded that the music companies should pay a royalty. This
led to a fight with Raj Kapoor about royalties which lasted for almost a decade.
Lata started by demanding 5%, and then settled for 2.5%, a target she eventually
achieved when Kapoor made the film Bobby in 1973.

But then you could argue she knew her worth. Look at her impact on Raj
Kapoor’s films.

Kapoor, post-Nargis, had first Padmini, and then another south Indian,
Vyjayanthimala, as his lady in white, playing in movies that were more sexually
charged than during the Nargis era. Jis Desk Mein Ganga Behti Hai featured
Padmini as a voluptuous bandit princess, and Kapoor as the simpleton, reformist
hero. This film, backed by Lata’s songs, was a success, as was Sangatn in 1964 where
Raj Kapoor, having found another actress from the south, Vyjanthimala, now gave
Indian audiences, most of whom would never leave India, a glimpse of London,
Paris,Venice and Switzerland. The story was banal—three friends and the girl they
grew up with. The settings were exotic but it was the songs that were arresting.

Lata was clearly realising her worth. And not having received her final
payment for Sangam, she did not sing for Mera Nam Joker in 1970, where Abbas
wrote what was in effect Raj Kapoor’s life story through the guise of a clown.
It took four hours and fifteen minutes, Raj Kapoor even bringing the entire
Russian circus, and a ballerina from the Bolshoi, for the film but, despite all
this, it was a disastrous failure. Whether this was solely due to the lack of Lata
is hard to say but it clearly played a part. It would be too much to say that Lata
made Kapoor’s films but she was a very important part of them. She did return
for Bobby in 1973, but there was again a problem for Satyam Shivatn Sundaram in
1978. As her biographer, Raju Bharatan. said, she did turn up for the recording
of the last song but did not sing it. She sat outside m her white Ambassador car
while Kapoor, with folded arms, waited for her. She then drove off. “The look
on Lata’s visage as she thus took off was one of score-settling triumph.”

There was probably more than money involved. She had been less than pleased
that the idea for this film, which she had discussed with Kapoor, and which had

an anthem of the body and the soul. Kapoor and she had spoken about making
a film about a girl with a beautiful voice and an ugly body. The result, which
featured Zeenat Aman with the concentration on her beauty and breasts, did
not go down well with Lata who, says Bharatan, “did not like the body beauty
theme. She expected the fusion of emotion and vision, and got fusion of vision
and passion.”

Whatever the reason for the differences. Lata Mangeshkar had finally
determined the worth of the singer.

This explains why many in BoUywood, while acknowledging the greatness
of Lata, also fear and distrust her. They contrast her with her contemporaries,
like Mohammed Rafi, who are praised for their generosity of sprit and their
willingness, at least on Rafi’s part, even to singrfor producers who could not pay,
and never did. Rafi and Lata fell out about royalties, with Rafi arguing that the
singer should be satisfied with a one-off payment. He was also not happy when
the Guinness Book of Records listed Lata as having sung the most ever songs
in the world: 30,000 recordings. Rafi wrote to Guinness saying he had started
earlier than her, was of better physique than the small petite Lata, and must have
sung more. As it happens, when this dispute was resolved in 1989, it emerged
that the real winner was neither, but Lata’s sister, Asha, who by 1989, had sung
7,500 songs.

However, to present Lata as some hugely money-conscious figure would be to
fall for an Indian trick. Raj Singh describes her life in 1959, when they first met
and when, after almost nine years at the top of her profession, having topped the
Binaca Geetmala charts and won the inaugural 1958 Filmfare best female play¬
back singer award, she was not rich enough to afford a proper dining table, and
when she entertained friends they had to eat on the floor.

I arrived in Bombay in August, 1959 . The city was awash with rain. I had by
then played the Ranji Trophy making my debut in 1956 . I desperately wanted to
play cricket. I knew Swapan Sardesai, a wicket keeper. 1 told him I can’t survive
without playing cricket. He said, ‘1 know the Mangeshkar family very well. Her
brother has some problems with his leg and if you want to play tennis ball cricket,

I will take you.’ I told him. I don’t care if he is Mangeshkar or Sangeshkar, I have to
play cricket, any cricket, cricket with a tennis ball or a rubber ball. He took me to
Lata’s building at Walkeshwar, Walkeshwar House on the hiU, which is dominated
on the top by Raj Bhavan, where the Governor of Bombay resided. So I went and
I played in the courtyard behind the building. We played cricket with a tennis ball.
Her brother, Hridayanth, was nice to me. She was not at home. She had gone for a
recording. She used to go for recordings from nine in the morning to nine at night,
at least. I was taken up and given a cup of tea. I drank my first cup of tea, I could not
say no. I ate paw paw. It was a very ordinary two-bedroomed flat. Most of them used
to sleep on the floor in the drawing-room: Lata, Meena, Asha and Hryidanath and

242

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Bollywood: A History

The Explosion of the Bombay Film Song

their widowed mother. They are still together. They said ‘come again tomorrow’.
That was an invitation I was not going to refuse. I was dying of rain in Bombay.The
next day she was there. The first time 1 met her. She was very nice. As I was leaving,
she said,‘Aaap kaisa aya?’ (How did you get here?) 1 said,‘By taxi’. She said,‘Take my
car’ and called the driver. She came right down and saw me off.

After four or five days she called me and my brother-in-law for the Sarat Purnima
(coconut festival). I had dinner at her place.The dining-room was too small. Dinner
was in her bedroom and we sat down on the ground. That is how I came to know
her. Then 1 went to recordings.

All this makes Lata very much an enigma for Indians and is further underlined
by her relationship with her sister. Asha could not be more different. At fourteen,
she was married to a Ganpat Bhosle, and produced three children, but it proved
an impossible marriage. Bhosle, realising the worth of his wife’s voice, set out
to exploit her. Her daughter, Varsha, has spoken of her childhood memories of
a terrible father and how she “erased my father from my memory.” Asha did
something very daring for an Indian woman of that time—she walked out.
However she did not divorce her husband and she only remarried after his death.
Her second husband was Rahul Dev Burman. In the intervening years she had
been involved with O.P. Nayyar, a married man, in a romance that was much
talked about in Bollywood but could not lead to marriage.

The association with Nayyar had one interesting aspect. During the 1950s and
1960s, Nayyar was the only major music composer in Bollywood who never
used Lata. It is possible that this was because Asha had, from the beginning, set
out to be different from her sister. Lata sang the songs with greater gravitas,
the more soulful songs, while Asha sang the more ebullient ones, the cabaret
and mujra numbers. As Premchand puts it, “Asha became identified with the
supporting actress or vamp and Lata with the goody-goody heroine.”

Asha also made it clear that she never set out to imitate her sister or to be a
duplicate. She had no desire to be the second choice if Lata was not available.
She set out to create her own style. This began to emerge from 1957 in films like
Paying Guest, Tumsa Nahin Dekha, Howrah Bridge and Naya Dam, her first playback
song having been a decade earlier in 1947. It was in Howrah Bridge, made in 1957,
that Nayyar gave her tracks with plenty of oomph in them to make her sound
very distinct from Lata’s. Occasionally, the two singers sang together in the same
film. Both Teesri Kasam and Do Badan, with Rehman playing the leading role,
had one song by Lata and also a song by Asha, and it is possible to distinguish
the style of the two sisters. It proved Asha’s point that she survived honourably
as Asha Bhosle, not just as Lata’s younger sister.

Asha has continued to be the more extrovert of the two sisters, often appearing
on the many television channels now available, and counting Michael Jackson as
one of her friends.

The contrasting styles of the two sisters had fed Bollywood gossip that the
sisters do not get along. But they live on the same floor in a building in Bombay’s
prestigious Peddar Road, and Asha flatly denies any rift, “There can be none
like Didi (the term of respect used for older sister). I love her songs, her voice,
her style. See when I am ill, Didi is at my side and uice versa. When we meet,
we don’t discuss music at all but she’s four years older and I give her the respect
due to her. I touch her feet and sometimes even press her feet at night because
she likes that.”

As for rivalry about who is the greater, she had always denied the sisters had
any rivalry. In sheer numbers though, Asha is ahead of her sister.

Between 1947 and 1989, Asha Bhosle sang a total of 10,344 songs in various
Indian languages, with 7,594 of them in Hindi. This means that over a period of
forty-two years, in effect, she sang a song every thirty hours. Lata, beginning two
years earlier in 1945, had sung 5,067 songs.

The 1980s marked the end of what may be called the golden era of the
Bombay film song. The dominance Lata had exercised, and her virtual monopoly
with Asha, came to an end. This decade also saw the three leading male singers
either die or retire.

Mukesh, who had migrated to Bombay from Delhi, and who had been weaned
away from his infatuation with Saigal by Anil Biswas, had died of a sudden heart
attack in 1976 while he was touring America. By common consent of the three
great male singers, what Indians call his soor (tune), was not quite pukka.

Four years later, Mohammed Rafi, who had an almost perfect education in
music, having trained under classical Indian musicians, including Barkat Ah Khan,
the younger brother of Bade Ghulam Ah Khan, developing a very manly, but still
very captivating voice, like Mukesh’s, died suddenly of a heart attack. Naushad
recalls how the day he died it rained in Bombay but, despite this, his funeral created
mass hysteria and the graveyard in Juhu was besieged by mourning crowds.

Talat Mehmood who was born in Lucknow, had studied music and, like
Mukesh, considered Saigal his great god. Anil Biswas again weaned him away
from Saigal, encouraging him to develop his own style, with a distinguished
voice. After the failure of the film Jahan Ara, Madan Mohan having chosen him
to sing in the film despite the producer wanting Rafi, he quit singing. Almost a
decade later, in June 199O1 he would tell the journalist, Meera Khurana, that he
had given up singing because music had changed in Indian films. “There was
a radical change in film music. Romance went out, violence came in. Melody
gave in to western pop. You can’t sing about grace and beauty in a discotheque.
I couldn t cope with the change in the trend of music; the change was sudden,
very sudden. I felt completely disoriented.”

The era of the Bombay film song was ending.

Lata, however, stiU carries on although she is not quite as dominant now; nobody
can match the power and influence she has exercised, and continues to, exercise.

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Bollywood; A History

Raj Singh tells the story of a recording of a song from Mughal-e Azam, which
sums up this remarkable singer.

The song was Raat itni matvali Subha ka Alam Khya Hoga. I went with her to
Mehboob Studios: eighty-piece orchestra, forty violins. We used to go to Naushad’s
place for rehearsal. He lived in Bandra.

Naushad said,‘Lataji are you ready?’

Lata:‘Can we rehearse once more?’

So he accompanied her on the harmonium.

Then he said ‘1 have composed the song.You put the four moons on it. 1 cannot put
the four moons.’ (What he meant was the finesse Lata put into her singing.)

Lata said,‘Are you ready?’

Naushad said ‘I am ready. Come to the mike.’

She went to a cabin.

After a few seconds she stopped.

Naushad said,‘What happened?’

‘Naushad Sahib, the boy with a blue shirt who is playing the violin. He is not
keeping to the tune and he is making me go out of tune.’

Naushad said,‘You are not out of tune.’

Lata said,‘If I am not yet out of tune, I will be. Please stop him.’

Naushad:‘This is a bit early in the morning for you. An hour before you came, I did
a rehearsal and nobody was out of tune. Don’t worry about this.’

Lata said,‘Since you want me to sing, I shall sing again.’

She sang again and she stopped.

Naushad said,‘There is no problem.’

She sang again and stopped.

Lata said, ‘Naushad Sahib, I am telling you it is a very easy thing. I shall go away, get
someone else to do the song.’

Naushad: ‘What are you saying? I have been composing this song for two years.
There is neither in heaven or hell a singer like you. What are you doing?’

Lata:‘You are not accepting my word’.

Naushad:’ I shall hear the orchestra again.’

He listened to the orchestra.

He got up and put his hands on the score and said,‘It is not for nothing people call
you Saraswathi?’ He then called out,‘Boy leave the violin and sit down.’

There were forty violins and she could still say that one boy was out of tune.

She was very obstinate. She would have left.

Laughter and Tears

It is a truism to say that Bollywood has never made a true comic film. In
Hollywood, the genre is' well-established and the list of comedy films runs into
several pages. But, even in Subhas K.Jha’s The Essential Guide to Bollywood, which
has a foreword by Amitabh Bachchan, and which makes a determined attempt
to hst Bollywood movies by genre from 1950 onwards, the section on comedy is
one of the thinnest, with just seventeen films in fifty years, eight of which date
from 1980. Many may question whether the films listed are real comedies, in the
sense of a film having a comic denouement, such as in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,
rather than ones with more comic situations than most other Hindi films. The
fact is, Bollywood does not do full-length comedy films but all its movies have
some comic sequences, even the most tragic ones.

Benegal has argued that one reason for this was the fact of Hindi cinema
had to create a film that would cater to all the language groups right across the
country, as he told me:

L..

Take American comedy: that is essentially New York comedy, which is very
Yiddish comedy. It came because of the Ashkenazi Jews who had come from Eastern
Europe.This comedy of the Jewish people eventually became the American national
comedy. You got that sort of thing m regional cinemas in India. There are characters
in Ray’s films, such as Middle Man, or the Bengali actor, Bhanu Bannerjee, who are
great comic characters; there are no characters like that in Hindi movies. In that
sense, regional cinema like Bengal cinema, had greater depth. Their comic actions
were central to the story.They would release the comedy from the social setting of
the story.That could only happen in the regional cinema.There is a certain cultural
specificity to comedy which Hindi cinema could not bring out. With Hindi cinema
you have to appeal to a pan-national audience. And if you are going to a pan-
national audience then you cannot have cultural specificity of any kind. As Hindi
cinema developed in the absence of cultural specificity, the films had to create a
never-never land.

never-never land.

246

Bollywood; A History

In this never-never land, comedy played a curious part. Every Hindi film,
of whatever type, had to have a comic role for an actor who did nothing but
essentially ‘bit’ comic roles. This may explain why nearly all the great comedians
of Bollywood had very foreign-sounding names, one of the best-loved named
after the Johnny Walker brand of Scotch. A large proportion of them were also
Muslims, although this may have been just a coincidence.

It has been argued that having a small comic role in every film was in keeping
with Indian tradition. Bharata, in his Natyashastra, the foundational treatise on
Indian dance, drama and poetry, written in the golden age of Hindus in around
AD 500, specified that hasya (laughter) was one of the eight rasas. A vidushak
(comedian) was always part of the Indian stage. But ancient Sanskrit drama never
had a full-blown comedy, just as it never had Greek-style tragedy. So it has been
with Bollywood films.

Sanjit Narwekar, in Eeena Meena Deeka, The Story of the Hindi Film Comedy,
has summarised it rather well:

...because comedy is often one of the many elements of a Hindi film, the
concentration has always been on the gag-related comedy in which a kind of visual
(and often verbal ad-libbing) routine developed between the hero and his comic
sidekick (all through the 1950s and 1960s) or two comedians who are woven in the
story for comic relief, and generally have a separate track unrelated to the main story
(often a pair of servants). Much of Hindi screen comedy—from Noor Mohammed
Charlie to Johnny Walker to Johnny Lever—is based on the development of the
cinematic gags which are actually very short stories within the framework of
the main story, usually with some dramatic climax—the “punch-line.” It is the
performance of the gag that often makes it funny, rather than the story itself

The comic situation in Bollywood can depend on mistaken identity or in a
character telling a lie, which leads to all sorts of situations or comedies based on
fads and foibles of the middle-class. But, as Narwekar says, “There are very few
examples of comedies of characters in Hindi cinema, primarily because most
Hindi films use comedians as stereotypes rather than etching special characters
for them.” Bollywood has not been helped by the fact that while Indians,
contrary to their perceived image, have a sense of humour, and can laugh at
themselves, when it comes to film, as in writing, they like serious work. For a
person to be considered a good actor, he had to be serious; to prove his sincerity.
Comedy is regarded as frivolous and those who wanted to be taken as serious
actors could not dabble in it.

Bollywood audiences liked to see the same stock characters play comic roles
in films, just as they found it hard to accept that an actor like Pran, who early in
the 1950S had established himself as a villain, could play anything other than a
villain. Bollywood greats did occasionally play comic roles, but this was a rarity.

Viliam. tJotlywood greats did occasionally play comic roles, but this was a rarity.

laughter and Tears

247

So much so that, when in 1967 Dilip Kumar played his one and only comic role
in Ram Aur Shyam, it created a sensation.

Dilip Kumar was then going through a mid-life change. In the previous
decade, he had tried to get away from being typecast as the tragic lover. This had
so got him down that he had consulted two psychiatrists in London, one of them
D.W.S.D. Nicol, who also counted George VI and Anthony Eden as his patients.
There had been further psychoanalysis in Bombay with Dr Ramanlal Patel. AH
this had made him take on different roles, and the year before he made his comic
movie, he finally married the actress Saira Banu, who was almost twenty years
his junior.

The film was a remake of a remake. A Tamil film, Enga Veetu Pillai, had been
based on The Prince and the Pauper. Ram aur Shyam was the Hindi version of the
Tamil film made, appropriately, by the south Indian producer, Nagi Reddy. DHip
Kumar played a double role: Ram, the serious character, and his long-lost twin,
Shyam, the buffoon, with a lot of the action in the movie in the great tradition
of slapstick revolving round mistaken identity. The film proved to be one of
the biggest hits of Bollywood and Kumar’s role has been the model for other
Bollywood films, such as Seeta aur Geeta, Chalbaaz and Kishen Kanhaiya.

Interestingly, in Hollywood’s slim selection of comedies Kumar’s wife, Saira
Banu, was to feature in a film released the following year, Padosan, which many
consider the funniest Bollywood movie of the last fifty years.

A decade after Ram aur Shyam, Sanjeev Kumar, another serious actor, who will
always be famous for playing the angry police chief seeking revenge on gangsters
in Sholay, played a married man with a roving eye in convincing comic style in
Pati Patni Aur JVo.

But these are exceptions. In Bollywood, actors who want to be taken seriously,
just do not do comedy. Dhirendranath Ganguly’s Bilet Pherat, as we have seen,
was an early Indian comedy and after that several actors emerged who took to
comedy, but they remained bit players. None of them was taken seriously as an
actor.

In the heyday of Ranjit Studios, there were several comedians who were
compared to Hollywood’s classics. There was even an Indian Laurel and Hardy.
The fat Manohar Janadhan Dikshit—his film name was Dixit — who, weighing
22olbs, modelled himself on Hardy, and the slim Nazir Mohammed Ghory, who
was the Indian Laurel.They acted until 1947, when Ghory left for Pakistan. Two
years later Dixit died of a heart attack.

In many ways, the most engaging pre-independence comic actor was
V.H. Desai, a law graduate, whose first love was acting. Desai had a wonderful,
natural comic touch; his problem was he could never remember his lines.
Manto, who devoted an entire chapter to him, calling him God’s clown, has a
hilarious description of the shooting of Eight Days, a film that Ashok Kumar was
producing. It required Desai to say to the heroine, “Neela Devi, you don’t have

proaucing. it requirea uesai to say to me neroine, tNeeia uevi, you aon t nave

248 Bollywood; A History

a thing to worry about. I have also drunk the water of Peshawar.” But Desai,
unable to remember the lines, would say “Neela Devi, you don’t have a thing to
worry about. I have also drunk the urine of Peshawar.” In Urdu, the word for
urine, peeshap, is quite close to Peshawar and Desai, a nervous actor, got them
confused. In the endless retakes he made other mistakes, once saying, “Neela
Devi, you do not have a thing to Peshwar about. I have also drunk your water,”
causing the actress playing Neela Devi to collapse with laugher. Either in this, or
another film, Desai’s record for a single shot was seventy-five takes. Manto, who
saw him make four films, says he wasted thousands of feet of film.

But directors knew he could make audiences laugh and, as Franz Osten told
him, “Mr Desai, the problem is that the audience likes you. The moment you
appear on the screen, they start laughing. Had that not been the case I would
have lifted you myself and chucked you out today.”

His last role was in the film, Andaz, where Mehboob cast him as Professor
Devdas Dharamdas Trivedi, alias DDT, then a popular pesticide in India, who
spoke at breakneck speed. The year after the film was released, Desai was dead
of a heart attack.

If Raj Kappor saw Charlie Chalpin as his mentor there was, through the 1930s
and 1940s, a comic actor who w^as actually known as Charlie. Noor Mohammed
Charlie got his nickname, Charlie, after he starred in a 1929 film. The Indian
Charlie which, for some curious reason, was not released until 1933. After that
he made between five and seven films a year. In 1943, he played Nargis’s father
in her first film, Taqdeer, where Nargis had to visit her screen father in jail. The
scene was not meant to be funny, but serious and tense, howwer Charlie was so
funny that Nargis was reduced to helpless laughter. A furious Mehboob scolded
her and Nargis then burst into tears and, as she later recalled, “Mehboob, having
got the mood he wanted, quickly shot the scene.”

Charlie went on to direct his own movie Dhandhora, and there followed other
movies but in 1947 he migrated to Pakistan ending a remarkable comic career.
But as Narwekar says, “Charlie has left long shadows on the Indian film scene.
Every comedian, beginning with Johnny Walker, has been in some way or other
influenced by him.”

johnny Walker, in many ways, was the classic comedian of Bollywood who
for over a decade until the mid-1960s defined comic acting in Bollywood. But
what makes johnny Walker unique is that he did his best work for the man who
w'as, and remains, the very epitome of the tragic movie-maker, whose movies
were about sadness, decline and sorrow. The Guru Dutt-johnny Walker coupling
in Bollywood is one of the more remarkable episodes of Indian cinema, where
the man of tragedy inspired the comic actor to produce some of his best comic
moments. It is a pairing that could only have happened in Bollywood.

Like the best of stories, it happened quite by chance. Badruddin jamaluddin
Qazi, for that was his real name, was doing his usual clowning on a Bombay

Laughter and Tears 249

bus. Born in Indore in 1924, he had moved with his family to Bombay, when
the textile mill his father worked for closed. Life was hard, five of his siblings
died and Qazi did various jobs, including selling vegetables, ice-cream and then,
finally, worked on the buses. His hero was Noor Mohammed ‘Charlie’ and he
desperately wanted to act in films but was aware that his intensely-religious
family would not stand for it.

Then came the moment on the bus when, unknown to him, one of the
passengers was Balraj Sahni, an actor of acute sensitivity and also a script-writer.
He had been scripting a film for Guru Dutt called Baazi and, on seeing Qazi’s
uncanny ability to hold the attention of his passengers with improvised speeches,
he decided to take a bet. It is said that Sahni instructed him to barge into
offices of Navketan, the production company set up by Dev Anan and his older
brother Chetan Anand, where Guru Dutt, Dev Anand and Chetan Anand were
working. His routine as a drunkard impressed everyone especially when, after
the performance, he was back to his sober self. So, despite the fact that Baazi
was nearly complete and Guru Dutt did not want another character, a role was
developed for him in the film.

His impersonation of the drunk also gave him his nickname, johnny Walker
being a very valuable and much sought-after Scotch in Bombay. This despite the
fact that by 1951 Bombay was in the grip of total prohibition and drinking was
only allowed either at home or in special permit rooms. In any case, as a Muslim,
Qazi would not drink. Qazi had, in fact, acted in a few films before then, as many
as twenty according to one count, but it was Baazi, and as johnny Walker, that
he achieved fame, developing a characteristic style as the hero’s comic side-kick.
He made the most of his pencil-thin moustache, facial grimaces and nasal drawl
and soon built up a fan base where audiences were drawn to any movie with
him in to listen to his squeaky voice and the faces he pulled—his smile reached
his ears when happy, and mouth drooped low when he sulked.

Although, like Qazi, an immigrant to Bombay, Guru Dutt’s career had followed
a very different path. A year younger than Qazi (he was born on July 9, 1925),
Guru Dutt had travelled up and down India as a child, accompanying his mother,
Vasanthi Padukone: from Bangalore to Calcutta, from there to Mangalore, and
then to Ahmedabad and finally back to Calcutta. These journeys were necessary
due to her unhappy marriage to a husband who constantly changed jobs.
Shivshankar Padukone went from being a headmaster in a village school near
Mangalore, to a bank official in Banglore, then manager of a printing press in
Mangalore and, finally, an administrative clerk at the Burmah Shell Company in
Calcutta, where he stayed for almost thirty years. Calcutta exposed Guru Dutt
to Bengali jatras—rural theatres—and he would be glued to performances held
in the open space next to their house in Bhowanipur. Then, on coming home
he would act out what he had seen. B.B. Benegal, an uncle who, as commercial
artist, designed and painted cinema hoardings, was also a great influence. Young

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251

Guru had a talent for dance and composed a snake-dance round a theme from
one of Benegal’s paintings. But the family’s finances meant there were few
opportunities to exploit his art. When he had just turned sixteen and passed his
matriculation, he had to give up studies and work as a telephone operator in a
factory for RS40 a month. Hearing that Uday Shankar was in town, he gave an
audition of the snake-dance and impressed the maestro but could not afford to
go to Almora, where Uday Shankar had set up an academy It was Benegal who
intervened to make it possible. As part of the Uday Shankar academy. Guru Dutt
toured India, visiting Hyderabad, where a young Shyam Benegal watched his
cousin perform. However, as foreign funds dried up during the Second World
War, Uday Shankar had to close the academy and Dutt joined his family in
Bombay. It was here, in 1944, again with the help of Benegal, that Dutt was given
an introduction to Prabhat where, as we have seen, he met Dev Anand and the
two made a pact about the future.

Soon after he was back in Bombay, where he found it difficult to eke out a
living as a writer with his short stories being rejected by The Illustrated Weekly of
India, then the leading Indian Magazine. He did, however, write a script called
Kashmakash, which he put in a drawer, hoping to make something of it in the
future.

Although Dutt did work as an assistant director to Amiya Chakravarty
and, later, Gyan Mukeijee, he was so frustrated that he thought of opening a
bookshop when Dev Anand kept his bargain. He had set up Navketan and asked
Guru Dutt to direct Navketan’s second production, Baazi. The success of the
film established Guru Dutt as a director. He could now even think of luxuries
and immediately bought a ceiling-fan for the family home in Matunga, this
being June when the heat in Bombay is awful.

Like other film-makers, the movie also established what became known as the
Guru Dutt team; lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi, music director Sachin Dev Burman
and camera assistant V.K. Murthy, who worked as a cameraman on all his films.
Some of these films are stiU seen as providing lessons to modern Indian film¬
makers and Murthy is considered to be one of the greatest cinematographers in
the history of Bollywood. During the making of this film. Guru Dutt met singer
Geeta Roy. They married in 1953 and she herself had a distinguished career as a
singer in many of her husband’s films.

And, of course, there was Johnny Walker.

Walker would later recall;

He used to tell me—Here’s your scene, your dialogue. If you can do better, go
ahead. In every rehearsal I would come up with something new. Guru Dutt used
to love that. He used to look at everyone on the sets and see if the light boys, the
cameraman, the assistants were laughing at my dialogues. Guru Dutt then had an
assistant write down whatever I said in the rehearsals.That’s how we worked.

Johnny Walker was now a regular of Guru Dutt films. He was in the 1952 film,
Jaal, where Dev Anand was the male lead, and Geeta Bali shone as the leading
lady.

Guru Dutt was acclaimed for the way he picturised the songs and his outdoor
locations. This was one of his many contributions to film making in Bollywood.
Like all Bollywood movie-makers, Guru Dutt knew there could be no movie
without songs. But Hindi movies were not like Western musicals—the songs
could introduce a totally unreal element to the unfolding of the narrative. And,
because Bollywood needed songs, the art of movie making had not developed
beyond this. Guru Dutt changed the very concept of how songs were filmed.
The song became, not something detached, but very much a part of the film and
its narrative. It was not a sort of commercial break but actually took the story
forward. In most other films audiences could get up and wander out during a
song.They would miss the lush scenery and some wonderful music but the story
line would remain the same. Not with Guru Dutt’s films. So the song sung by
Kalu, the taxi driver in Aar Paar, is set in a garage, Rustam the masseur in Pyaasa,
probably his greatest film, solicits customers in plain, realistic dialogue rather than
flowery language. The song matched the settings and the mood of the film.

In his early years, Dutt made crime thriOers but, after the failure of Baazi, a
costume drama set on the high seas, which was panned by critics and hated by
the masses, he decided to make different kinds of movies. He also decided to
give Johnny Walker a song—it was unusual for a comedian to have one, although
Johnny Walker’s hero, Charlie, did have songs picturised on him. It worked very
well in Aar Paar, which was made in 1954. Rafi sang for Johnny Walker, with Rafi
changing his singing voice to try and fit the comic personality Johnny Walker
was portraying. This worked so well that many got the impression that it was
Johnny Walker who was really singing.

This was vividly demonstrated in Mrs and Mrs 33 where, in one scene, Johnny
Walker had to compliment Guru Dutt while he rendered a song. Narwekar says,
“He does such a perfect mime job that the song seems incomplete without his
presence.”This film is the nearest Guru Dutt came to making a comedy. With a
new dialogue writer in Abrar Alvi, the film had an engaging repartee which was
genuinely witty and introduced a new idiom for dialogue in Hindi films. It also
broke away from the stylised, almost theatrical, dialogue many a Hindi film had
favoured. Dutt had made this film and the previous one with his own production
company. Many of the themes of the Dutt films first emerged here; technical
virtuosity in elegant camera movements, the play of light and shadows, creative
use of close-ups and tracking shots and Dutt’s poetic style. By now, of course,
Johnny Walker and Dutt were not just colleagues but firm friends who would
often going fishing together or even on hunting expeditions.

Johnny Walker was also in huge demand and, in 1955, he had twelve other
films released. Until the end of the decade, he averaged around ten films a year.

252

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253

and worked in other films besides those with Guru Dutt—with B.R. Chopra in
Naya Daur in 1957, and with Bimal Roy, Madhumati, in 1958. It had also become
mandatory to have a song for him which often would be the highlight of the
film. {Main Bombay ka Babu, in the former, and Jungle Mein More Naacha, in the
latter, are remembered and hummed even today). Besides these, he starred in a
series of films as a comic hero, often opposite Shyama: Chhoomantar in 1956, and
Shrimati 420, also the same year and then, in ig^J,Johnny Walker and in 1958, Mr.
Qartoon, MA.

The next two Guru Dutt films, Pyaasa in 1957, and Kaagaz Ke Phool in 1959,
made Guru Dutt a legend of Bollywood, making his reputation as master
film-maker in all aspects: script, performance, music, and cinematography.
They represent the best of Bollywood and have acquired a cult status. They are
now seen as films that, through camera work never before seen in Bollywood,
liberated Hindi cinema from its theatrical moorings. They showed how far Dutt
had come from Baazi and his growing mastery of the medium.

His two greatest films were autobiographical notes: Pyaasa, based on the story
he had written a decade ago, is of a rejected and scorned poet who becomes
a cult figure and is mistakenly believed to have died in an accident. Kaagaz Ke
Phool is about a film-maker who dies a lonely and forgotten man.

Pyaasa also saw him introduce a new actress who defined a woman with a very
different background coming into movies and who, also, had a devastating effect
on his personal life. Until the 1940s, no woman from a respectable family would
act, Durga Khote and Devika Rani being the exceptions. From the late 1940s,
daughters of actresses of previous generations, who had been well-educated, like
Nargis, broke through. Now there was Waheeda Rehman, born into a traditional
Muslim family in Hyderabad, and trained in Bharatnatyam. She would later
tell a journalist how, by the time she came, girls from respectable families were
entering films. “I was lucky to have been given the opportunity to build up an
image of dignity.” She did it so well that she is now seen as the embodiment of
classic Muslim beauty, with a truly transcendental appeal.

She had been acting in films for a year, albeit Telegu films: Jaisimha in 1955,
followed by Rojulu Marayi, the same year, and was a huge, regional success when
Guru Dutt spotted her and brought her to Bombay. He cast her as the vamp
in his 1956 film, C./.D,. directed by his protege, Raj Khosla. The song, Kahin
Pe Nigahein Kahin Pe Nishana, as she tries to seduce the villain and allow the
hero to escape, reveals her extraordinary facial mobility and dancers grace. But
it was in Pyaasa, playing the proverbial prostitute with the heart of gold, that
she made her mark as an actress of note. Nadira, in an interview with Cine Blitz
(December 2005), rubbished the idea that Waheda Rehman could act, “Please,
what’s the matter with you? She is just very lucky with the kind of films that
came to her. There’s a lot of difference between being a good actress and being
plain lucky.” But Nadira was just about to die and she was being bitchy about

almost all her contemporaries. Nargis was dismissed as “a big bully” and Meena
Kumari as a woman who was always threatening to die but didn’t have the guts
to do so and, also, an actress who “was a big cheat as far as acting was concerned.
She knew which angle of her face suited the camera best, how much glycerine
she would need for a shot.” Nadira called Meena Kumari “Chor number 11” (thief
number ii).

The more acceptable view of Rehman was that she blended nuances of love,
desire and despair in a film which Dutt and his assistants had planned with
meticulous attention to detail. Rehman’s role as prostitute had been conceived
when, one night in Bombay, Abrar Alvi (Dutt’s scriptwriter) and a friend had
visited the city’s red light district. “I got talking to a girl who called herself
Gulabo and I managed to get her pathetic story out of her. As I left, she thanked
me in broken voice saying it was the first time that she had been treated with
respect, in a place where she heard only abuses and gaalis (swear words). I used
her exact words in the film.”

There is a dramatic scene in the movie where Waheeda follows Guru Dutt
up the stairs to the terrace to the strains of Aaj Sajan Mohe Ang Laga Lo. By
now she had also got involved with Guru Dutt. And it was ironic that his wife
Geeta Dutt’s voice was used on Waheeda Rehman, the actress, as she ‘sang’ sweet
nothings to Guru Dutt.

Unfortunately for Guru Dutt, Kaagaz Ke Phool, for all its artistic success, was
a box office disaster. He decided he would no longer direct. As a director he did
not have the self-confidence of Mehboob or Asif—he would keep asking his
assistant to tell him where he had gone wrong with a shot. Now he gave the
directorial credit to Alvi while he acted in the lead role for his 1964 film. Sahib
Bibi Aur Ghulam, based on Bimal Mitra’s novel and revolving round the lonely
daughter-in-law of a nineteenth century feudal family, played by Meena Kumari.
It is still seen as a Bollywood benchmark of brilliant scripting and hypnotic
cinematography.

But it could not bring him out of the conviction he had formed since the
failure of Kaagaz Ke Phool: that Bollywood had no place for him. It did not
help that his personal life was disintegrating. His marriage had broken up, he
had got involved with Waheeda Rehman, and her success in films other than his
own, tore them apart personally, and professionally. Waheeda Rehman completed
Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam under some strain. Guru Dutt, in trying to cope with an
unhappy and tense domestic situation, started drinking and smoking heavily.
During the final days of the shooting of Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam he had become
increasingly depressed. He took an overdose of sleeping pills and slipped into
a coma. It did not help that, despite the rave reviews it got in India, where it
won the President’s Silver Medal, the film had a very indifferent reception at
the Berlin Film Festival in 1963.Waheeda and he broke up after that. Guru Dutt
could never really get over her and on October 10 1964, he killed himself.

264

Bollywood; A History

1964 also marked the moment when Johnny Walker’s film career took a dive
from which it never recovered. In 1965, he even had to contend with a man
called Johnny Whiskey paying comic roles. Johnny Walker continued working
regularly right up to the late 1970s, and sporadically into the 1980s, with a small
cameo in the Kamal Hassan’s, Chachi 420. This was Bollywood’s remake of Mrs
Doubtfire and displayed the new comedians such as Paresh Rawal, a comedian
of a very different kind. But of Johnny Walker’s later work, perhaps his only
memorable role was in Hrishikesh Mukegee’s, Anand in 1970.

Johnny Walker would explain his decline in terms of morahty saying, “It is
very easy to make people laugh by using vulgarity and double-meaning dialogue.
But that is not genuine comedy; that is not the comedy you can enjoy with your
entire family.”

Was this, perhaps, a dig at the comedian who took over from Johnny Walker
in the mid 1960s earning the title the King of Comedy: Mehmood? Certainly in
his heyday, Mehmood made films which were considered by critics to be in bad
taste, with vulgar jokes, and Narwekar refers to films like Do Phool, made in 1973,
and Kunwara Baap in 1974, as examples, with the latter film having a eunuch song
which was felt to be in rather bad taste.

Yet, ironically, it was Johnny Walker and Guru Dutt who gave Mehmood his start
in him and launched him on the high road that would make him a comedy king.

Unlike Walker or Guru Dutt, Mehmood was not an outsider. He was born
into films and came from the milieu of the Bombay film world. He was the
son of actor/dancer Mumtaz Ali and later married the sister of Meena Kumari.
Although born in BycuUa, in central Bombay in 1932, his interest in films was
aroused when his father moved to Malad, near Bombay Talkies.

He would often go the studio, entertaining actors and actresses with his
ability to mime. In 1943, he played the young Ashok Kimar in Kismet but had
little interest in acting as a career and, as a young man, did various jobs, selling
poultry products, teaching table-tennis to Meena Kumari and being a chauffeur
for, among others, director P.L. Santoshi. When Santoshi’s son, Rajkumar, made
his own comedy, Andaz Apna Apna, he wrote in a special part for Mehmood, not
as a chauffeur but as a producer of sleazy films.

Mehmood had small parts in various films, including Roy’s Do Bigha Zameen
but his first major role came thanks to Johnny Walker who introduced him to
Guru Dutt and he got the part of a murderer in C./.D. In Pyaasa, he played one
of Dutt’s screen brothers.

Mehmood’s first big moment came in the 1958 film, Parvarish, playing the
brother of the hero Raj Kapoor during the filming for which Raj Kapoor was
supposed to have given him a hard time. He got his revenge twenty years later
in 1971 when Randhir Kapoor made the Kapoor’s three-generation family saga,
Kal, Aaj am Kal, with Prithvi, Raj and Randhir Kapoor Mehmood produced a
spoof film called Humjoli, where he played grandfather, father and son and, as he

Laughter and Tears

256

said later, “I copied Papiji’s [Prithviraj’s] heavy baritone, Raj Kapoor’s voice and
his stiff hand and Dabbo’s [Randhir’s nickname] vigorous shaking of the head.”
The Mehmood film proved a great success, while the Kapoor one failed.

Mehmood’s great gift had always been his ability as a mimic. As a child he
did so well that stars like Premanth and Nutan would summon him to entertain
them. And he remembered mannerisms. So, as a young man having watched
TolaramJalan of Filmistan and his style of talking, his habit of saying, “The whole
thing is that,” he used it with great effect in the film, Sabse Bada Rupiya.

Mehmood not only copied others’ mannerisms, he also copied from other
films. Many of his best, most vivid comedy movements were actually taken from
Tamil films featuring the comedian Nagesh.Three of Mehmood’s most successful
films, Pyar Kiye Jaa, Main Sundar Hoon and Bombay to Goa, were based on
Nagesh’s Tamil hits with Bombay to Goa having been called Madras to Pondicherry
in the Tamil version. Both films were based on the idea of a bus journey from a
part of India formerly controlled by the British to a part formerly under another
European power, Pondicherry having been French, and Goa Portuguese. Bombay
to Goa, as we shall see, also served as a Bollywood footnote in the role it played
in the career of one of BoUywood’s greatest actors.

Parvraish gave Mehmood his first good notices and three years later came
the first film which stamped him as the great comedian of BoUywood. This
was Sasural. Both Paravarish and Sasural were films that were full of tears and
anguish but Bollywood audiences also liked laughter to cope with the tears and
Mehmood provided buckets fuU. Sasural, which means in-laws, also paired him
with actress Shuba Khote. Their zany combination was so successful that they
went on to become a “comedy pair” in many hit films thereafter—hits like
Love in Tokyo and Ziddi. Later, Aruna Irani replaced Khote in the comedy team,
although unlike Khote, Irani had ambitions to be a leading.lady, not just a comic
lady let Mehmood set the pace.

Mehmood also teamed up with another comedian, I.S.Johar, who was much
more than a comedian. He wrote and directed as well and was one of the few
Bollywood actors who played in Hollywood movies including Lawrence of Arabia
and Death on the Nile. He was, says Narweker, at his best “delivering dry sardonic
dialogue tinged with cynicism and accompanied by a raised eyebrow.” He had
come into comedy quite by accident. In the 1949 film, Ek Thi I^dkhi, as he
performed a walk-on role, which was to chase the heroine’s boat, he shot so far
ahead of the boat that the director and the cameraman fell about laughing and
decided he was a natural comedian. The man who had financed the film could
not stop laughing as well when he saw the rushes.

They teamed up in what was advertised as “India’s first feature-length
comedy”— Namasteji. This was followed by movies incorporating their names
in the film’s titles— -Johar Mehmood in Goa, where Johar played the cynic and
Mehmood, the musical humorist, and was followed by Johar Mehmood in Hong

256

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257

Kong. There was also Gumnam, which was based on Agatha Christie’s Ten Little
Niggers. This was a great success but not so the Hong Kong versions of their
Johar Mehmood film.

By the late 1960s, Mehmood had far surpassed Johnnny Walker and, in an
industry where success was judged by money, he was said to be paid more highly
than some of the lesser heroes of Bollywood. This bred resentment and insecurity
in BoUywood acting circles and Mehmood’s comedy began to come undone. He
was accused by many of downgrading the quality of comedy in Hindi films, in
particular when he tried to play comic south Indian characters.

India, like all countries, makes jokes of certain of their countrymen. The
Americans have Polak jokes about people with Polish origins, the English
joke about the Irish, the Irish have “Kerry” man jokes. In India the jokes are
about Sardars, as the Sikhs are called. But this had rarely translated into movies,
Bollywood being aware it had to appeal across many divides. But Mehmood
started making jokes about south Indians, including the “lungi uthake” jokes.
This referred to the lungi, the cloth that the south Indians wear to cover their
bottoms and which he would lift in a provocative fashion. In Bombay then the
south Indian run Udipi restaurants serving south Indian food and the Indian
version of fast food - McDonalds having not yet come to the country - were
much in the spotlight. This was the time when a Bombay cartoonist called Bal
Thackeray was forming a political party aimed at expelling the south Indian
migrants from the city. His party would grow more vicious and fascist and end
up targeting Muslims, Mehmood’s own community, but that came much later.

Long before that Mehmood, partly as a result of the criticism, decided to
concentrate on his own production house, which he had started in the early
1960s, his first production being Chhote Nawab in 1961. This had been followed
by a suspense-comedy-thriller called Bhoot Bangla, in which Mehmood had
taken the director’s chair for the first time. His company’s major success was
Padosan which reunited Mehmood with Kishore Kumar.

Back in his Bombay talkies’ days Mehmood had not only got to know Ashok
Kumar but also his brother Kishore and the story goes that, with Kishore riding
high, Mehmood approached him for a role in one of his movies. Kishore Kumar,
knowing Mehmood s excellent sense of comedy, made a remark that became famous
in Bollywood legend, “How can I give a chance to someone who will compete with
me? To this, Mehmood is supposed to have good-humouredly replied, “One day I
will become a big film-maker and I wdl cast you in a role in my film!”

Padosan was the result and many consider it to be Bollywood’s most enduring
comedy film and Kishore Kumar Bollywood’s lost comic genius.

As Benegal says, “He was not a bit player. The others could be used as bit
players. He was the central character. He was a comic hero. He was one of the
few comic heroes we created at that time, the nearest we have had to a Walter
Mathau or Jack Lemon.”

Kishore Kumar elevated the comedian from being a side kick in the movies to
a major star but could not convert Bollywood comedy into Hollywood — style
comedy. He might have done so if he had not been so reluctant a comedian. In
some ways the tragedy for Bollywood was that Kishore Kumar could act, sing,
compose, direct and acting was the least of his ambitions. He had always wanted
to be a singer with Saigal being his hero although he also used to imitate Ashok
or “Dadamoni,” as he called his older brother.

Ashok Kumar recalls that as a child Kishore Kumar had an awful voice,
“As a child his voice was very shrill. His speech too, was not clear as he
was often down with coughs and colds. But he was very fond of singing.
It was more like screeching than singing.” Ashok Kumar had given him a
harmonium but when he sang his family dreaded it as it sounded like a bamboo
being split, it made such a grating noise. But then around ten he had an accident
when playing the fool in the kitchen (he remained a practical joker all his
life). One of his toes was badly cut. With limited medical facilities available
and no pain killers the child was in such agony, says Ashok, that he cried
for twenty hours a day for almost a month. “Gradually the wound healed up.
But one month’s practice of crying suddenly cleared his voice and it became
melodious.”

Kishore Kumar was just eighteen when he came to Bombay to join Ashok
Kumar. His older brother had no intention of encouraging him to become a
singer. Instead he wanted him to become an actor and, after a few early films
such as Shikari and Shenai which went unnoticed, he made his mark with Ziddi
which made Dev Anand’s reputation. Ashok pushed him into the film when
the actor due to play the gardener did not turn up, although Kishore was so
frightened that he ran away and was only found two hours later. He also sang a
song in the film Marne ki Duayen Kyon Mangu for Dev Anand, in the style of his
great hero Saigal. And like his hero Kishore Kumar both acted and sang, although
from the beginning he made it clear that he wanted to sing.

In both acting and singing Kishore was very different from his brother Ashok.
While Ashok had no acting education but had been trained in classical singing,
and had tried to learn from the acting of Hollywood stars, for Kishore, acting
was instinctive. But he would amaze people by how easily he could convey both
emotions and provoke laughter.

Ashok Kumar had been impressed with his brother’s natural acting style and
so had Phani Majumdar, the veteran director. He said, “I have heard some people
not appreciating Kishore’s gesticulations in acting. But I must say only he can
manage whatever he does. No one else can get anywhere close to his acting style.
Along with comedy he can play serious roles with great ease.” H.S. Rawail who
directed him in his earlier films said, “He was a comic par excellence. The best
we have had. He had that musicality bred in his very marrow. So he could dance,
he had that fantastic flair of gesture.”

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Laughter and Tears

259

After a decade in which he acted in different films and was the voice of Dev
Anand in many of his movies, he stamped himself as Bollywood’s greatest comic
talent in two films —Bhagamhhag where he, and another comedian, Bhagwan,
try and find an expensive coat, a search which leads to two women and all sorts
of escapades. Two years later came Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi which is considered
one of the best Bollywood comedies where all three Kumar brothers Ashok,
Kishore and Anup feature along with Madhubala, whom Kishore eventually
married. In the film the brothers run a garage, Madhubala has a car that needs
to be repaired, the character Kishore plays falls in love with her and the comedy
is about Kishore trying to meet Madhubala despite his brother, played by Ashok,
who is a misogynist. However, in the nature of Bollywood comedy, it ended on
a serious note but was appreciated for its many zany situations and rousing songs
by Kishore Kumar.

Kishore, the actor, never stopped playing the fool on or off the set. Once
he was required to drive along a certain path in and out of shot. He did so by
driving right out of the studio and for another 30 miles. He then rang and said he
had reached the outskirts of the city, just where the city ends and the road to the
‘ghats,’ (mountains) begins. When the director protested he said “You explained
the shot but did not say at what spot I should stop.”

This was Kishore Kumar’s way of getting back at directors who he hated,
“Directors are like school teachers. Do this. Do that. Do not do that. I dreaded
them.”

But much as he hated them, he has left us with a riveting picture of what it
was like to be an actor in the Bollywood of the 1950s and 1960s. “There were so
many films I was doing in those days that I had to run from one set to another,
changing on the way. Imagine, me—my shirt falling off, my trousers falling off.
Very often I would mix up my lines and look angry in a romantic scene or lovey
dovey in the midst of a fierce battle. It was terrible and I hated it.”

For Kishore Kumar acting was keeping him away from his only love—singing.
“I only want to sing. But I was conned into acting. I tried virtually every trick
possible to get out of it—I muffed my lines, pretended to be crazy, shaved my
head off, played difficult, began yodelling in the midst of tragic scenes, told
Meena Kumari what I was a supposed to tell Bina Rai in some other film—but
they would not let me go.”

However, in one film he did prove impossible and his extraordinary behaviour
gave the chance to a man who would became the great big story of Bollywood
of the early 1970s.

In 1970, Hrishikesh Mukerjee had chosen Kishore Kumar to pay the lead in
his film Anand. The film was about a dying cancer patient. Kishore Kumar did
not like the part but Mukeijee finally got him to accept and all the important
dates were agreed. On the first day of the shooting Kishore Kumar turned up
but one look at him and Mukeijee knew it would not do. He had shaved his

hair off. Mukeijee then decided to offer the part to Rajesh Khanna, who the
previous year had made the film Aradhana and was an up and coming actor. He
walked away with the Filmfare award for best actor and for a few years became
the biggest star Bollywood had ever known.

Kishore Kumar did not mind. For the next decade and a half Kishore Kumar
sang some of his best songs for Rajesh Khanna and they formed a very successful
partnership.

His advantage as singer was he could picture how the song he was singing
would look on the screen. Though he was formally untrained, he assimilated
various musical notes into a rhythmic sequence and once a beat was established,
could depart from the established pattern and combine notes and words/syUables
into new kinds of musical harmony.

And because he could both act and sing this gave him an edge over his
contemporaries. So when he came to act, the ability to sing and dance that
he could often bring to his acting style fazed his fellow actors. This was most
evident in Padosan released in 1968, where he plays a music teacher who helps
a naive young man get a musically inclined girl. The problem is the young
man is tone deaf and the comedy centres round this. Kishore Kumar’s part was
not the lead but Mehmood and Sunil Dutt, who had bigger parts, were so
worried by how well Kishore was acting that during the making of the film
they rewrote their parts to make sure they were not completely obscured.
Nevertheless when the movie was released it was Kishore Kumar who stole the
limelight.

That year, however, marked the end of his acting career and this was largely
due to his chaotic personal life. If Kishore Kumar was the nearly great man of
Bollywood on the screen, he was a disaster in his personal life. He had four wives.
He divorced his first. He buried his second wife, the beautiful Madhubala. The
marriage proved extremely difficult and saw Madhubala, still pining for Dilip,
considerably distraught before she died. Kishore followed this with marriage to
another actress,Yogita Bali, which lasted just about a month (because, it is said, he
would not let her share his bathroom) and then married his fourth wife, Leena
Chandavarkar, who was two years older than his son, Amit.

All this may be seen as part of his eccentricities. He put up a board outside
his house saying ‘THIS IS A LUNATIC ASYLUM’. He reportedly spoke to his
trees in his backyard addressing each by a special name. It was not unknown for
him to pretend he was not in, even telling visitors in a made up voice that he
was not in while he was hiding behind the sofa, he did this even when Ashok
Kumar came calling.

Kishore Kumar always had problems with money and the tax department. In
the 1960s his tax problems had forced him do B-films.

When the then journalist, now film producer, Pritish Nandy visited him he
found some piles of badly kept files. Their conversation went as follows;

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Bcilywccd: A History

Laughtor and Taars

261

Nandy:What are those files?

KK: My income-tax records.

Nandy: Rat-eaten?

KK: We use them as pesticides.They are very effective.The rats die quite easily after

biting into them.

Nandy:What do you show the tax people when they ask for the papers?

KK: The dead rats.

Nandy; I see.

KK: You like rats?

Nandy: Not particularly.

KK: Lots of people like them in other parts of the world.

Nandy; I guess so.

KK: Haute cuisine. Expensive too. Costs a lot of money.

Nandy: Yes?

KK: Good business, rats. One can make money from them if one is enterprising.

Not surprisingly the tax man raided his home.

Kishore never did lose his sense of fun and Asha Bhosle, with whom he sang
many duets, has described how Kishore Kumar could cause chaos. As they were
singing together, Kishore Kumar, singing with his eyes closed as he often did,
tumbled over Asha. “I tumbled upon Bhola Shreshta and he in turn fell on the
tabla player (the drummer). We had become human dominoes, until the entire
orchestra was flat out. I was severely hurt on my nose. The tabla was destroyed
beyond repair, and the accordion player had sprained his ankle. But Kishore acted
as if nothing had happened. All of us were in tears holding our stomachs and
laughing uproariously.”

Kishore Kumar often came to recordings as if he was in the company of an
invisible boy. Asha says, “This non-existent boy and Kishoreda (a term of respect)
used to talk to each other continuously, at times cracking jokes and breaking into
laughter....” Kishore Kumar would invite Asha Bhosle to join the conversation
but she could never make anything of this.

If this suggests a touch of madness, then this is confirmed by the experience
of H.S. Rawail. There are several versions of this story. One goes that Kishore
had not come to a shoot and Rawail went to his home only to find he was
pretending to be a dog with a chain round his neck, a plate of chappati near him
with a bowl of water and a sign saying ‘Do not disturb the dog’. When Rawail
tried to get in on the act and held out his hand as you would to a dog, Kishore
bit his hand and barked incessantly. The other version is he went to pay Kishore
money and still got bitten with Kishore saying, “Did you not see the sign?”

His death had the sort of sadness touched with comedy. He had just taken a
phone call fixim a music producer to sing some songs and discussed the price but
instead of taking money had spoken about how many mangoes he would be given.

Then he settled down to watch The River of No Return. Upstairs his wife Leena was
having a massage. Suddenly Kishore Kumar came up and lay on the bed, a bedroom
where he had hung a photograph of his mother next to one of Marlon Brando
from the Godfather. From his breathing his wife thought he might be having a heart
attack. She was about to call the doctor but Kishore intervened to saying he was all
right and, if she called a doctor, he would have a real heart attack.

This turned out to be his last words. The doctor arrived but heart massage
proved useless and on October 13, 1986, Kishore Kumar died aged fifty-eight.
Bollywood had lost the man who could have been its greatest comedian but had
instead become a man almost impossible to classify.

Ten years before he died, Kishore Kumar had had an introduction to India’s
political world which was far from funny, indeed frighening; Mrs Gandhi had
declared an emergency in June 1975. Kishore’s biographer Kishore Valicha takes
up the story.

In the same year, around December, an evening was organised in New Delhi,
at Sanjay Gandhi’s instance, to publicise the six point programme Gandhi had
visualised for the country. Film stars and leading singers from the film industry in
Bombay were invited to attend. Almost aU of them were present to speak through
the mike and to sing to a large audience in an open theatre.

Kishore Kumar was not there. His absence was not only noticed but deeply missed by
the spectators who had gathered there in adoration of the glamorous celebrities. Kishore
had not responded and had simply not shown up. He seemed not to care.

The consequence was severe and dreadful, though not unexpected.The broadcast
of Kishore Kumar’s songs on the Government-run All-India Radio and on the
black and white television of those days was totally banned on the quasi-authority
of those who held the political reins in their hands. The official reason given was
that his songs were obscene. No song of Kishore was broadcast until the end of the
Emergency when Mrs Indira Gandhi lost the election. The punishment could not
have been more colossal.

By this time Mehmood’s career was all but over and as the 1980s came to a
close he was reduced to playing second fiddle to a Marathi film comedian Dada
Kodkhe who was trying to break into Hindi films.

Mehmood does provide a link between Bollywood of the 1950s and the
world that has now developed. When Mehmood was his height in the 1970s,
a young man arrived in Bombay hoping to make it into films. The immigrant
had no place to stay so Mehmood’s brother offered him a room in his house.
At that time, Mehmood was producing his comedy called Bombay to Goa where
Mehmood was playing a bus conductor. He needed a hero and decided to cast
the young man in that role. The young man was Amitabh Bachchan and this was
his first movie as a leading man.

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Bollywood; A History

Almost twenty years later Mehmood, who was not in the best of health
but keen to revive his career, had one last crack at comedy. In 1996 he made
Dushman Duniya Ka. Mehmood managed quite a cast list for this film and the
young Mehmood, complete with toothbrush moustache and manic eye-rolls,
was played by Shah Rukh Khan, who has never concealed his admiration for
Mehmood. But despite his presence, and that of other big names, the film proved
a flop.

Mehmood died in his sleep in July 2004, far from his beloved Bombay, in a
hotel room in Pennsylvania, where he had gone for medical treatment.

Perhaps the sort of lonely end that comes to all comedians.

PartV

Anger and After

A Shy Man and his Usa of Anger

265

A Shy Man and his Use of Anger

On February 15, 1969, a gangly twenty-seven year old, uncommonly tall for an
Indian, certainly for an Indian actor, arrived in Bombay determined to make
it in movies and that very day he got his chance. That film flopped, but success
could not be denied him; it came four years later with a movie that was seen
as a landmark new film, and soon the star was to revolutionise Bollywood. That
young man was Amitabh Bachchan. It is tempting and quite feasible to write the
history of Bollywood since 1973, when Bachchan had his first hit with Zanjeer,
with Bachchan as its central character. He emerged when the Big Three of the
50s were still going strong but, since 1973, there has only been one actor. Even
today, at sixty-four years old, such is his domination of Bollywood that, when he
decided to play the teacher of a deaf and dumb girl in the movie Black, in 2005,
he not only produced a triumph, but a movie that charted new territory for both
himself, and for Bollywood.

Shyam Benegal told me:

There is not a figure remotely comparable, not just in Bollywood, but in no
theatre or cinema business do you have an equivalent figure anywhere in the world.
He is a bigger star than anybody today on the planet, anywhere in the world. As
an actor, he is as respected as Olivier or Geilgud in Britain for the quality of his
performance. No exaggeration. He is an exceptionally good actor. He was not
trained. He is an unlikely person to became such a big star; nobody would have
given him half a chance. You should have seen him when he first came to Bombay.
Nobody could have believed that he would make such a big impact; that he would
even make a star. There were a number of other actors when Amitabh Bachchan
came to Bombay. Amitabh broke a barrier in the way no other actor has done, not
even the Big Three. He fiUed a kind of vacuum. First of alll he wasn’t a romantic
hero. He represented in many ways the oppressed. He came at a time when the
early hope of independence had gone. People were threatening a lot of things
and the ability of the Government to deal with issues was in doubt. In Sholay, he

dies. One of the main characters. In that sense it was a different role. In Black he
is playing an older character. He is no longer playing a hero. He had retired . As
a consequence he becomes as big if not a bigger star m his middle age. Zanjeer
gave him a profile that became his public persona. That changed recently when he
was the presenter of Kaun Banaga Crorepati [India’s equivalent of‘Who wants to
become a Millionaire?’].This gave yet another kind of characteristic which became
much more satisfying to a much larger audience. If he was a superstar before KBC,
he was a superstar for a section of the Indian audience that followed Indian cinema
After KBC, he has became a national icon. That had not happened to him before.
Nobody is bigger than him. He is much bigger than Sachin Tendulkar. Amitabh has
a persona now which is so extraordinary. He can be seen as a role model for just
about anybody and everybody. He has nothing in his personal life that you could
consider not right or reprehensible in anyway whatsoever.

Even the Bofors scandal did not affect him. He was put through a great deal of
embarrassment for no reason. Amitabh’s going rate for movies will be between three
and five crores of rupees (Rs 30 milhon to Rs 50 million). He will be paid 10% or
20% on signing.

Khalid Mohammed in To be or Not to be Amitabh Bachchan has written:

...no other actor has been more unsrruling in cracking a joke, and no actor has
conveyed solitariness with so little self-pity. No one else on the screen has looked
at us, seated out there in the dark of the auditorium, so hard, so searchingly. It all
sounds impossible. But come sunset or sunshine, the real impossibility is to think of
cinema and our lives without him.

But tempting as it is to tell the BoUywood story of the last thirty years in
terms of this public schoolboy, there were also others, both actors and actresses
and directors, who played a part in the making of the Bollywood story and,
above all, wider economic and political factors which helped Bachchan achieve
his dominance and become a figure that is unique, not only in Bollywood but
in world cinema.

Bachchan announced himself in the movies the very year that India took
a decisive and, as it has turned out, disastrous turn, which meant it was facing
completely the opposite direction to most of the world and, in particular, to
the Asian countries to the south and east of her. In the decade that followed
these countries, often emerging from cruel dictatorships, shed their repressive
Governments, took to liberal capitalism and launched the tiger economies,
whose growth rates stunned the world. In contrast, going down the socialist
route, India was mired in what was called the Hindu rate of growth, never more
than 3.5% a year, and it was only in 1991, facing a severe foreign exchange crisis
and forced by the IMF, that Indians changed tack and rejoined the world.This has

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Bollywood: A History

A Shy Man and his Use of Anger

2B7

relevance to the Bachchan story, for the woman who took this decisive turning,
Indira Gandhi, was a great family friend of the Bachchans; her daughter-in-law
to be, an Italian girl called Sonia Maino, born near Turin, who became Sonia
Gandhi, stayed with the Bachchans when she first arrived in India to get married
to Indira’s son, Rajiv. It may be a coincidence that 1969, the year of Bachchan’s
debut in films, was also the year Indira Gandhi made her decisive turn in Indian
politics, a few months after Bachchan’s arrival in Bombay but, nevertheless, it is
of some significance.

In July 1969, Indira Gandhi, then Prime Minister of India, announced the
nationalisation of all the banks of the country. The move was presented as
something essential to help the poor. The Indian poor certainly had reason to be
unhappy and wonder what twenty years of freedom had brought. In 1966, there
had been famine in Bihar and Maharashtra. In Kerala, there had been rice riots,
and Mrs Gandhi had theatrically announced she would not eat rice till people
in Kerala got rice. So acute was the food shortage that there were so-called
“guest control orders” which meant nobody could hold a party serving food
to more than fifty people. In parties where greater numbers were invited the
custom was to serve Just a thin slice of ice cream which, it was rumoured, was
made with blotting paper. India, in the previous decade, had had two wars with
its neighbours. In 1962, it had been badly mauled by China, in 1965, it had the
better of a draw with Pakistan. Mrs Gandhi, who had come to power a year after
that war, made populist noises which was later to be summed up in her campaign
slogan “Remove Poverty,” but what really prompted it was her feeling she may
lose power to the right-wing Congress bosses who went under the name of the
syndicate, and controlled the party machine. They had put her in power, hoping
she would be a pliable woman, a little doU, as they put it. But she was to prove a
tiger. Mother Durga, the great Hindu goddess that slays demons, and her move
in 1969 was the first of her counter-strikes against the syndicate. This would
include proposing her own candidate as President of India, opposing her party’s
official nominee, and then on August 15, 1969, splitting the party that her father
and Mahatma Gandhi (no relation of Indira) had spent a lifetime building. The
party that was formed was named after her, a name that it stiU carries, while the
old official Congress party vanished, as if it had never existed.

The India that Indira had taken over, after nearly two decades of rule by
her father, Jawaharlal, was the most curious kind of country. It was a thriving
democracy that could rightly claim to be the world’s largest democracy, yet it had
the most socialist legislation outside of the Soviet Union. But that was on paper
and the effect of this legislation was not Soviet-style communism but monopoly
capitalism, what Indians called the permit-license Raj, in place of the old British
Raj. To get anything done, licenses were required from bureaucrats, leading to
much corruption, and it had also led to horrendous monopolies where a small
group of private businesses could control vast sectors of the economy. So, as

Bachchan was making his first films, only two types of cars were available. One
was the Ambassador, a car based on the old Morns Oxford and manufactured by
the Birlas, the business group that had financed Mahatma Gandhi and done very
well out of India’s independence.The other car was a 1960s version of the Italian
Fiat. Demand so outstripped supply that the waiting list for a Fiat was fourteen
years, and for an Ambassador four years.The net result was that second-hand cars
fetched vastly more money than the price of the car when new. There was also
no television to speak of except for an experimental television station in Delhi
and, while the written press was free and raucous, radio was tightly controlled
by the Government through the Information and Broadcasting Ministry (the
British-created war-time ministry that the Indians had carried on with). The
Government also required all cinema houses to show Government propaganda
films before a movie could be screened. As likely as not, these propaganda
films often had exhortations on Indians not to waste food. It was against this
background of shortages and growing disillusionment that Bachchan, and the
new style of movies, began to emerge in the 1970s.

Interestingly, the character Bachchan played in his first movie success, Zanjeer,
to an extent reflected the political style Mrs Gandhi so successfully adopted
in 1969. This was of a person who was part of the system but yet against it.
Her dramatic decision in 1969 was made when she was very much the Indian
establishment. During her father’s reign, she had often been the companion of
her widower father to many an official function, and on his various overseas
trips. She had been Congress President, when she played a prominent part in
removing the elected Communist Government of Kerala from power and, then,
having been a Minister of Information and Broadcasting, and thereby in charge
of films, she was now the Prime Minister. But her moves against her party were
presented as that of a little brave woman fighting the evil syndicate party bosses,
helped by the fact that most of them looked fat and ugly, as party bosses tend to,
one of whom, Atulya Ghosh from Bengal, always wore dark glasses and another,
Kamaraj, spoke no English or Hindi. In contrast Mrs Gandhi, always looking
petite, could easily picture them as evil men who did not care for the people,
and it was concern for these poor masses which was forcing her to tear her
party apart. Mrs Gandhi rode to victory and success, as the woman in power
bucking the system until, undone by her son, Sanjay, and cronies in the party,
she overreached herself with the Emergency, which was imposed two years after
Bachchan’s success in Zanjeer.

In the movie, Zanjeer, Bachchan played a cop who, as a child, had seen his
parents murdered. He becomes a cop, then uses the services of a Pathan, who
has often been in trouble with the police, and a street girl, to avenge himself on
the killer. The film would set the pattern for many of Bachchan’s movies that
followed, and gave the films of the 1970s the convenient short- hand title of the
decade of the angry young man. Bachchan was the brooding loner, with very

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Bollywood: A History

A Shy Man and his Use of Anger

269

little time for song and dance, and no hesitation in taking the law into his own
hands to ensure justice, which the system had failed to provide, was meted out
to deserving criminals.

Bachchan’s skill, says film-maker Govind Nihalani, was that his acting summed
up the mood of the nation as, in an earlier generation, Raj Kapoor’s movies had
done:

Any kind of image attributed to an actor, like the Angry Young Man, concerns
not only that actor, but also the environment that prevails in that period of history
in which people are functioning. If there is a certain anger in the minds of the
people, against certain kinds of system or against some kind of Governmental
policies or social norms, or taboos, and if somebody expresses it...if the actor is able
to convey that anger effectively, then he’s actually expressing the anger of the pent-
up emotions of his own generation.

For a man who would be identified as the angry young man of the country,
Amitabh Bachchan’s background and upbringing can have done very little to
foster the screen anger he displayed. As a young boy he was very much the good
boy that Subhas Bose had warned Indians not to be. However, reflecting the
times he was born in, he was very nearly given the name of Inquilab (revolution),
having been born on October ii, 1942, just as India was in the midst of the
Quit India movement, the fourth and last of the great movements launched by
Mahatma Gandhi to get India’s freedom from British rule. The British put it
down with remarkable severity and Amitabh’s father, Harivanshrai Bachchan,
wanted to call his son Inquilab, but accepted the poetess Sumitra Nandan Pant’s
suggestion of Amitabh, which comes from Amit and Abha; some friends stiU call
him Amit, which means Everlasting Light. In many ways Amitabh Bachchan was
born in what would become the Indian establishment soon after independence.
His birthplace, Allahabad, was the home town of the Nehrus, and both his
parents, his mother, Teji, and father, Harivanshrai, were dedicated nationalists.
Amitabh considers himself very much an Allahbadi, a city with a strong mixture
of Hindu and Muslim culture, and one that influenced the Nehrus so much that
Nirad Chaudhuri would argue that Nehru was more influenced by Muslim than
Hindu culture.

The Bachchans were also well connected to the rising Bollywood establishment.
His family were very friendly with the Kapoors. Harvanshrai would go to
Prithviraj’s stage performances and then, at the backstage soirees, recite his poems
which Prithviraj liked. But when in 1969, Amitabh came to Bombay looking
for work he did not make his way to R.K. Studios, preferring to try and make
it without “puU,” as the Indians put it.

Amitabh grew up in what he calls an ambience of East and West. His father,
a poet, a writer and well-respected figure in Hindi literature, his mother, from

what is called the Westernised Indian families (her father had been called to the
bar in London); she was educated at a convent and had had an English nanny.

Amitabh was brought up strictly, which may explain why he was shy and had
problems with simple tasks like entering a restaurant on his own. This shyness
was to plague him in his early days as a struggling film actor. Once, he had to
meet the actor Manoj Kumar for an assignment, and Kumar asked him to come
to the Filmistan Studios where he was shooting at the time. Every day for a week,
Bachchan went all the way to the studio, only to falter at the gates, unable to
walk in, undone by shyness. Surprisingly, despite his superstar status, and after
years in cinema and many live programmes, he still admits to being extremely
shy and an introvert, a trait that is often mistaken for arrogance. Perhaps this
diffidence may explain why even in his conversations with Khalid Mohammed
recorded in 2002, he would say, “I’ve always been a mediocre actor. Believe
me, every film, every performance, is an effort. 1 could always have been more
sensitive and brighter. We are steeped in mediocrity.”

The family were not exactly rich: Bachchan senior earned RS500 a month and
they neither had a fridge nor a ceiling fan and, in the intense northern Indian
summer heat, his mother would flood the floor with water to cool the room and
place ice slabs before the rickety table-fan to cope with the afternoon heat.

The Bachchan recall is that there was never too much money for entertainment,
but the parents clearly directed the children to what they felt was wholesome
entertainment. Amitabh’s first movie love was Laurel and Hardy, and his first
Hindi movie was Satyen Bose’s 1954 film Jagriti, a film with strong nationalistic
overtones about encouraging the young to think of India and its glories. Later,
he would cherish Montgomery Clift’s acting in A Place in the Sun, as well as
Marlon Brando in almost every film of his, particularly. The Wild One; he could
not sleep for nights after he saw Charlie Chaplin’s Limelight, with the music in
the film haunting him for a long time. The family’s friendship with the Nehru
family meant Bachchan did have privileged access. He and his family would be
invited to screenings of films at Rashtrapati Bhavan, the President’s Palace, and
here he saw Czech, Polish and Russian films, although their anti-war messages
did not particularly grab him. He has always felt that the aim of the cinema is
not to preach, but to entertain.

In 1956 Bachchan, after his early schooling in Allahabad, w^nt to a boarding-
school, Sherwood College, in the hill station of Nainital. This was a missionary
school where a Rev. R.C. Llewellyn was the Principal. It may seem strange the
Bachchans could afford boarding-school. But, by then, his father had changed his
job and bettered himself He had gone to England to do his PhD, sponsored by
Nehru, only to find on returning to Allahabad University, where he was Professor
of English, that they wanted to reduce his salary. In a huff, he resigned his job.
Nehru found him a job as head of the Hindi division of the External Affairs
Ministry (in independent India Nehru, in addition to being Prime Minister, was

a puci, a WIILCI aiiu wcu-rcspccLcu ugurc 111 niiiui liicraturc, nis moiner, irom

Ministry (in independent India Nehru, in addition to being Prime Minister, was

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also the Indian Foreign Minister). It meant that the family moved to Delhi, more
money became available and Amitabh went to boarding-school.

At school, he showed a proficiency in the sciences and fared rather abysmally
in the arts, so much so that he even thought of becoming a scientist. He was an
active participant in dramatics, tutored by an Englishman, a Mr Berry, and for
his performance as the Mayor in Gogol’s Inspector General, he won the Kendall
Cup named after Geoffrey Kendall, father of Jennifer and Felicity, whose touring
Shakespearean company was well-known in India, particularly at boarding-
schools. Kendall, himself, presented the cup to Amitabh and Amitabh honed
his talents further at Kirorimal College in Delhi through their theatre society,
‘The Players’. Despite opting for the science stream, his academic performance
at college was pretty mediocre and he only got a second class degree when he
graduated in 1962. There then followed some years in Calcutta, working as a
boxwaUah, as they call those who worked for the managing agencies that the
British had set up and which controlled a number of diverse companies.

It was hardly a glamorous start. He had not got a good degree and, as he would
later, adrmt, I had to take what I got and that was in the coal department of the
agency house, Bird and Co. I was there for two years, before moving to the freight¬
broking firm. Blacker and Co.” The salary was better, he had a car, a black Morris
Minor, which then became a somewhat bigger. Standard Herald. His first pay packet
was RS480, out of which he had to pay RS300 for his rent, sharing a room with
eight in Russell Street, a main street in the centre of Calcutta. Bird provided free
lunch, and dinner was often whatever he could get “from here and there” on the
streets of Calcutta. “It was an ordinary run of the mill lifestyle, very mediocre.”

But, Calcutta did provide him more opportunities for amateur dramatics;
Sartre, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Beckett, Shakespeare, Harold Pinter
were all performed, with Bachchan acting as Nick in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf
and as Casio in Othello. His boss, David Gilani, thought his acting was of a very
high standard.

However, Bachchan had to cope with the race prejudice that still lingered in
Calcutta in the early 60s, a decade and a half after the British had left;

There were two groups there. The Amateurs and the Calcutta Dramatic
Society, which was a white, British group. The Amateurs was made up of Indians,
mainly public-school guys. So, between the two groups, there was a racial colour
discrimination. The Calcutta swimming club had barred Indians. Some of us were
among the first to be accepted by the club. Later, of course, things improved. The
discrimination subsided.

It was his brother, Ajitabh, who encouraged Bachchan’s film ambitions and
took pictures of him outside Calcutta’s Victoria Memorial, sending them to the
Filrnfare-Midhuri talent contest. But nothing happened, and it seemed Amitabh’s

life would be a continual series of failures; after aU, the man who has probably one
of the best voices in BoUywood failed tests as an announcer for All India Radio,
both in English and Hindi. The pictures, though, were to come in useful.

Like aU those who want to make it in films Bombay beckoned and, in the late
60s, Amitabh started coming to the city. Although he did not take advantage of
the family’s connections with the Kapoors, he did stay with friends of his father
but, then, felling he had overstayed his welcome, spent a night on a bench on
Marine Drive.Then, like the best stories in life, through chance and a lucky turn
of the wheel of fortune, he finally got an opportunity to make it in the movies.

The photographs that Ajitabh had taken had done the rounds of Bollywood. Suml
Dutt had seen them, his wife Nargis had got to know Amitabh’s mother and wanted
to help, and B.R. Chopra had summoned him from Calcutta to have a screen test.
But the problem always was he was a “Lumbu,” a Hindi word which means tall and
which can be and, in this case was, used in a pejorative sense. He was just too tail
for an Indian actor to have any front hne actress wanting to play opposite him. After
one screen test, one producer suggested he take to writing. “You look hke a writer
and, then, since you are the son of a reputed poet, it should not be difficult for you.”
The advice to Amitabh was very clear: do not give up your day job, which was now
quite a good one, earning Rs2,500 a month, a very good salary in India then, with
a car and a flat, although Amitabh did find fife in Calcutta insular.

Then when he was near despair, the photographs, through the help of an
actress friend, Neena Singh, reached K.A. Abbas, director of Saat Hindustani, and
it helped that Abbas still held on to its radical ideas and was a different kind of
film-maker. The film was a patriotic tale of six Indians joining their comrade in
Goa to liberate it from Portuguese occupation, and Abbas was keen to “scramble
up” the Indians. So he wanted a Muslim playing a Hindu bigot, a Bengali
playing a Punjabi and Amitabh, because of his looks and his height, made Abbas
instinctively feel that he looked the part of the poet he wanted, and a Muslim
poet, at that. But even here, the actual part came to him when another actor,
Tinnu Anand, who had taken the photographs to Abbas, dropped out to go to
Calcutta to work with Satyajit Ray and become a director.

The film was a failure but there was one moment during the shooting that
stood out, marking the actor to come.

The last scene saw the seven Indians of the title scrambling up a steep hiU.
They were aU tied to each other by ropes, with Amitabh the last. He would not
allow a stunt man to play him in the scene, which involved losing his footing
over some loose rock and dangling over a waterfall before being pulled to safety
by his comrades. “With a duplicate,” recalled Abbas later, “I would have had to
take a long shot. But, since it was him, I could zoom in and show the agony on
the character’s face.” After the scene had been shot, Bachchan crawled up with
scraped shins and, as he did so, aU the technicians, who had all been drenched by
the spray of the waterfall, burst out into applause.

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But, if this showed his dedication to the craft he had just entered, off the screen
he was still the well brought-up young public schoolboy. Like all Abbas film, this
was a low budget film. The actors had been told to bring their own bedding and
accommodation for the six week shooting in Goa was a large hall where all the
actors spread out their bedding on the floor and slept. “Each one of us” says Abbas,
“had our suitcases against the wall with the bedding spread alongside. Except
Amitabh. Every night he would open the trunk (he had brought the biggest trunk
Abbas had ever seen), take out his bedding, and pack it up in the morning.”

He was still his mothers boy.When he met Madhu, then a leading Malayalam
actor, on the sets, he introduced himself as Teji Bachchan’s son. Madhu had met
his mother when he was studying at the National School of Drama in Delhi and
was a great admirer of his father’s poetry. Madhu noticed he recited his father’s
verses all the time, a practice Madhu attributes to the quality of Bachchan’s voice.
When, in Shatranj Ke Khiladi, Satyajit Ray wanted someone for the voice-over
narration, he turned to Bachchan, and his baritone voice became a character in
that film.

Despite the failure of the movie, Bachchan did start getting parts but none
of them looked like making him a star, let alone a big star, and he had to take
whatever roles he was offered. In a world where a man who aspires to be a hero
never portrays unsympathetic characters in films, Bachchan had negative roles in
Gehri Chaal and Parwana. In Reshma Aur Shera, which featured some stars of the
future, like Vinod Khanna and Raakhee and where Sunil Dutt kept his promise
to give him a film role, Bachchan ended up playing a mute.

Not that in 1969 Bollywood was looking for a star. The Big Three were aging
but a young man had appeared who it seemed was certain to take over from
Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand and Raj Kapoor.

Rajesh Khanna could not have been more different to Amitabh Bachchan.
Shobhaa De has provided the most vivid pen portrait of the two men:

Amitabh is a low-impact guy. You notice his voice, his eyes, and then the aura
takes over. It’s the aura of success that transforms the most ordinary of individuals
into larger-than-life beings. Amitabh wears his very well. Or used to, tiU his career
and image hit a downslide. Be that as it may, he’s stiU a cut above Khanna...But then
Khanna was not part of the Nehru-Gandhi coterie. He was only an inner city boy
who had made good. Amitabh came as a package, with all his antecedents clearly
marked on it.Well-spoken, well-read, urbane and suave, he was the sort of man who’d
be comfortable in the world’s saloons. Not Rajesh, with his innumerable hang-ups
and self-doubts. Both men flopped in politics—Amitabh got out prematurely, while
Rajesh hangs in there for want of a better career option. Rajesh is marked by a
persecution complex that he doesn’t bother to disguise, Amitabh by his studied
silence.The one thing they have in common is their aloofness. Rajesh may be kakaji
(uncle) to his hangers-on and Amitabh may gamely put up with fawning socialites

dying to be seen dancing with him in public, but nobody back-slaps these two or
acts familiar with them. It is important for even fading superstars to maintain a
distance, if the mystique is to be preserved.

Of course De was writing in 1998, when Amitabh seemed down and out, only
to be reincarnated through television and then make it back into the movies.

Rajesh Khanna, born Jatin Khanna, was the adopted son of his parents and, after
a stint in theatre, he won a talent contest, something Amitabh could not do. He
made his film debut in Chetan Anand’s 1966 Aakhri Khat, a very different start to
Bachchan, for Chetan Anand was a big name director from the very established
Anand movie estabhshment, a far cry from making films with Abbas in Goa. In
1969, while Amitabh was going round Bombay with the pictures Ajitabh had
taken, Khanna played a dual role, father and son, both air force pilots, in Aradhana.
He cut a dashing figure in uniform and the mannerisms he displayed, crinkling
his eyes and shaking his head, as he beckoned the heroine to him, made him the
great romantic hero. The S.D. Burman songs also helped and the film was a huge
hit. In December 1969, Khanna starred in another film, Raj Khosla’s Do Raaste,
and produced something Bollywood had never seen before. Aradhana was already
running at the Opera House when Do Raaste opened at Roxy, across the road, and
Bombay witnessed the remarkable phenomenon of two movies with the same star
playing to packed houses and both having golden jubilee runs.

The Rajesh Khanna phenomenon was sweeping everyone in Bollywood off
their feet and the hysteria he generated was unlike anything seen before and after.
As hit followed hit, and women aU over the country swooned over him, Rajesh
Khanna admitted feeling ‘next to God.’ Five years later, in 1977, with Amitabh
Bachchan well-established as the greatest hero Bollywood had ever seen, and
Khanna’s career in ruins, he was said to have gone out one evening onto his
terrace in pouring rain and asked God whether his patience was being tested.

Bachchan knew he was in the shadow of this superstar and in 1970 he
deliberately decided to play the doctor who looks after the dying cancer patient,
Anand, played by Khanna in the film called Anand. Bachchan’s motivation was
if he played off the super star he would get some attention. Mehmood, whose
brother Anwar Ali had become a great friend—it was through him that Bachchan
became a paying guest at the sprawling Mehmood home and got to know
Mehmood, acting in Bombay to Goa —advised him, “Design your performance
round Rajesh Khanna. Imagine him dying... it’s an enormous thing...the nation
win cry their hears out for him.” That, says Bachchan, is just what happened.
“The very fact that I’d been teamed with Rajesh Khanna, the greatest idol, gave
me a semblance of importance and respectability.”

Bachchan would later recall,“Rajesh Khanna—the word superstar was coined
for him—brought attention to me because of him. Here was a brilliant story and
script exceptionally handled by Hrishida. The film looked so real, it left millions

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of Rajesh Khanna fans very emotionally disturbed.” The last scene showed
Bachchan, the brooding, sensitive, doctor watching as Khanna, who had borne
his suffering with a smile and shown great spirit in adversity, dies. It helped that
the film was made by what may be called the Bimal Roy school of film-making;
both the director, Hrishikesh Mukeijee, who also wrote the story, and the writer
of the screen play, Gulzar, had been assistants of Roy, with the music composed
by Sahl Chowdhury. During the making of this film, a bond developed between
Bachchan and Hrishikesh Mukeijee; Bachchan would come to revere the
director and recall with fondness how he had calmed him down when playing
the last scene where Khanna dies. The thought of performing in the scene had
made him so nervous that he was a bundle of nerves and unable to perform
till Mukeijee got him to relax. It was with Mukeijee that Bachchan was to act
in eight films, more than with any other director. In the years ahead, Bachchan
would be directed by many others but Mukeijee was always the standard against
whom he measured them and some of the directors also invoked Mukeijee to
define their own contrasting styles when directing Bachchan. Bachchan would
later say of Mukeijee’s directing:

I’ve done my maximum number of films with Hrishida. Its never been a
professional relationship with him, it’s purely been a personal one. He’d scold Jaya
and me on the sets, we’d sulk and then brighten up on being patted on the head.
Outside the studio, he’d reprimand us, check us and we’d always obey him to the
last word. Being a brilliant editor, his film would be already cut and synthesised in
his mind even before he shot it . To be economical, he would often avoid shots of his
artists into, and exiting, from a frame.’

Bachchan’s performance won him his first Filmfare Award for Best Supporting
Actor but, while critics finally took notice, and were even complimentary, none
of them thought he would be anything other than a strong character actor, at
best a 197OS version of Balraj Sahni. But, at least this was a change from the
relentless bad notices Bikram Singh, film critic of The Times of India, gave him
who, as Bachchan says “always harped on my gaunt face and gawkiness. This
was Bachchan’s first real success, where he had shown undoubted acting ability.
Mehmood’s Bombay to Goa had been a box office success but that was more due
to the hilarious cameos in the film.

But, since like all commercial cinema Bollywood values box office more than
anything else, Bombay to Goa had been noticed and when the following year
Prakash Mehra set out to make Zanjeer, he turned to Amitabh, although he was
fifth choice after Dev Anand, Raj Kumar, Dharmendra and Rajesh Khanna.
Dev Anand, Mehra’s first choice, wanted the actor to be allowed to sing two or
three more songs, but Mehra had to tell him it was not that kind of character.
Then, bizarrely, he offered to produce and finance the film through Navketan

I'hen, bizarrely, he ottered to produce and tmance the film through INavketan

and get Mehra to direct, an offer that quite astounded Mehra. He had started
the discussion offering the veteran a role only to find the veteran offering him
a job. Mehra had an understanding with Dharmendra, but he could not fit it
into his schedule, while Rajesh Khanna felt the character did not go with his
romantic image. Pran, who was to play the Pathan, suggested Mehra go and see
Mehra in Bombay to Goa and, in particular, the young actor, Amitabh. So, with
his two script-writers, Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, known as Sahm-Javed in
the business, Mehra went to the movies to have a look at Amitabh. As it happens
Pran, who does not like going to the movies, had not seen the film but relied on
what his son had told him. The film had a fight scene and the moment Mehra
saw it he screamed “Mil Gaya,” meaning “We have got it.” While the rest of the
audience in that hall turned to look at him in surprise, Mehra got up and walked
out - he did not need to see the film till the end - and, as he did so, he told
Javed, “We have found our hero.”

But having got a hero, there was now a problem with the heroine.

Khanna’s rejection meant Mumtaz turned it down. An actress from a good
middle-class MusHm family, who made the most of her voluptuous figure and
an alluring pout, she had starred with Khanna in several successful films and had
been so successful that, in 1970, she won the Best Actress Award. With Khanna
no longer the hero, she was not interested. But, fortunately for Amitabh, Jaya
Bhaduri stepped in. Daughter of a Bengali writer, she had been a child actress
and, as a thirteen year old she had acted in Ray’s Mahanagar, and was one of the
first to be trained at the recently set up Film Institute at Poona. The two of them
had also acted in films together, although their first pairing in Guddi, which is
when they first met, did not last long for, after a few shots, Amitabh was dropped
for reasons that mystified Jaya. Perhaps it was because by then Amitabh’s own
schedule of making more than one film at a time meant he could not fit in with
the demands of the film. By the time Zanjeer came along they were an item,
although m a wholly Indian way. According to Jaya this did not extend much
beyond going to movies together, leaving before the end as by now they were
sufficiently well-known to be recognised, but there was nothing in the nature
of any Western-style dating, not even romantic, candle-lit dinners. Most of the
time they spent together would be in the company of other friends and Amitabh
would drive her round town in his Fiat and give her expensive sarees.The only
problem was most of them were white, with a purple border, a colour Jaya hated
but she wore them nevertheless so as not to upset him.

The making of the film was beset with problems. Pran, who played the Pathan,
a villain who befriends the policeman as he seeks justice, was in many senses the
central seUing-point of the film, being the established star. But, on the first day
of the shooting, he threatened to walk out when he discovered he had to sing a
song. The song and the words had not been given to him in advance and, having
been cast as the eternal villain of Bollywood for almost three decades, it was

been cast as the eternal villain of Bollywood for almost three decades, it was

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well-known in the industry that Pran Sahib, as he was called, did not do songs
and dances, and all that running round trees. Mehra had to rush to Pran’s house
to plead with him, saying without him the film would not work as Amitabh as
a hero was not a bankable box office proposition.

Pran having recommended Amitabh without ever seeing him act found him
quite a greenhorn who had to be coached. They had a scene together in the
police station where Amitabh had to kick a chair away from Pran, in a show
of anger. Amitabh just could not demonstrate the necessary anger. He was close
to Pran’s son and, in the Indian fashion, called Pran uncle. Pran would tell
his biographer, “1 knew what was happening inside him. So 1 told him ‘Don’t
think of me as your uncle. Think of me as the villain here. Forget the uncle
and kick the chair. Only then could he do the scene well enough. He was so
respectful.”

Bollywood had sneered before the film was released. Mehra, a failed lyricist,
had taken to directing and had just one halfway decent hit to his credit, but
the writers Salim-Javed had no credentials to speak of Salim was a wannabe
actor who had had a couple of very small roles and an acting career that was
going nowhere. Javed was busy ghost-writing dialogues for forgettable films.
While Zanjeer was being made, Bachchan’s Bandhe Haath was released, and was a
disaster; that meant he had thirteen flops, and the mood in the Zanjeer camp was
so gloomy that Prakash Mehra, more to raise morale and get Bachchan out of
his depression, announced his second production would be Hera Pheri, a comedy
starring Bachchan, with Vinod Khanna. But, on May 23 1973, when Zanjeer
opened at Liberty Theatre in Mumbai, it went on to make film history. The film,
quite unexpectedly, just took off.

If Bachchan was a failure before Zanjeer, after its release everything he did was
a success. Of the seventy-odd films he starred in from 1973-1984, when he took
a sabbatical from films to enter politics, only three failed to recover their costs. A
1984 survey showed that of the fifteen all-time top gross films in Hindi cinema,
40%, starred Bachchan. Even those films considered flops at the time of their
initial release, went on to become successful when re-released. In fact, some of
his films made more money on re-releases than many a hit film starring other
actors. On May i, 1980, he made the cover of India Today. He was pictured in a
red jacket against palm tress and the story was headlined:The One-Man Industry.
The authorVir Sanghvi wrote:

At any given time of the day over a lakh (100,000) people are watching him sing,
dance, fight on the screen. Every year, over four crore people(ioo million) watch
this man battle the forces of evil. Each time he leaves home, investments worth
Rs 50 crore (500 million) ride on him. As French producer TUain Chamas, who
tried to unsuccessfully sign him, said in exasperation, “ Amitabh Bachchan is an
industry.”

However, while Zanjeer was being made, and before Bachchan had become
a film industry on his own, he was involved in the movie that would define
Bollywood for the modern era, the 1970s, and beyond. If Mother India and
Mughal-e Azam were the iconic movies of the 1950s and early 1960s, then Sholay
was to prove to be, arguably, the most memorable movie produced by Bollywood
and which took Hindi cinema to a level it had never attained before.

As a film, it broke aU box office records; the movie ran uninterruptedly for 286
weeks in Bombay’s Minerva theatre. At the fiftieth Filmfare awards it was recognised
as the Best Film of fifty years, and voted the “Film of the Millennium” by BBC
India and internet polls in 1999. It was also the highest grossing movie of all time
in India, with collections of Rs. 2,134,500,000 — or US $50 million, a record that
stood tin 1994 when Hum Aapke Hain Kaun surpassed it. It is widely acknowledged
by movie critics to be one of the best movies ever created by Bollywood and to
be the most-watched movie, revolutionising Hindi film—making and bringing
true professionahsm to script-writing. It was the first Hindi (and possibly Indian)
movie to have a stereophonic soundtrack. The director, Shekhar Kapur, has said,
“There has never been a more defining film on the Indian screen. Indian film
industry can be divided into Sholay BC and Sholay AD.” The dialogue in the film
is so well-known that some of its most dramatic lines are used in ordinary Indian
conversation in much the way that dialogue from the first Godfather movie, which
starred Marlon Brando, has been recycled in the West. The film has been used to
sell everything from glucose biscuits to gripe water. A ticket black marketeer in
Delhi made so much money he built a house from its profits; rickshaws in towns
like Patna are named after Dhanno, the mare, that featured in the film, and one
actor who had a single line, but a dramatic few moments being shown on screen
as a man on a rock holding a gun, was waved through by a New York immigration
officer who instantly recognised him. It took two years to make the movie and
the actors and actresses who performed in it had their own particular agendas,
providing a counter point to the story they were seeking to narrate, with one pair
pursuing a love that was forbidden, another marrying during its film-making and
a third, unable to find love, taking to drink and slowly wasting away.

The making of the film itself, and the various plots and counter plots between
the performers, would itself have made an excellent movie and, many years later,
Anupama Chopra would write one of the best books to emerge on the Indian
cinema, Sholay: The Making of a Classic.The film, and those who made it, in many
ways reflected all of contemporary Indian life.

The year Sholay was released was also the year another film of Amitabh was
released: Deewar, which, for all the commercial success of Sholay, hogged the
honours at that year’s Filmfare Awards and, two years later came Amar Akbar
Anthony which became a great cult movie. The two directors Amitabh worked
for on that film could not have been more different to Ramesh Sippy, the
director of Sholay, or to each other.

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Deewar was directed by Yash Chopra who, by then, was no longer known as
just the younger brother of B.R. Chopra. In fact, having long lived with him
in one family unit, the brothers had split in a messy convoluted dispute that
defies simple analysis, as his biographer points out. Amar Akbar Anthony was by
Manmohan Desai, who could not have been more different to Chopra.

Yash Chopra developed the reputation in Bollywood as the director who was
reinventing himself every decade. Although Chopra would become known as
the "king of romantic films’, he also made movies which could more accurately
be classified as thrillers, or even high drama. Brought up since the age of thirteen
by B.R, who was eighteen years his elder,Yash showed his style in the very first
film that his brother B.R. gave him to direct, Dhool Ka Phool. This is the story
of a woman betrayed by her lover and the fate of her illegitimate children. In
Dharmaputra,Yash Chopra considered a Muslim child brought up in a Hindu
household and who, unaware of his religion, becomes a Hindu fanatic. In Ittefaq,
there was yet another development, a songless thriller involving a man accused
of murdering his wife and a single woman who shelters him.

But it was Deewar, and the association with Amitabh Bachchan, that marked his
most successful period. Bachchan may have established the brand of angry young
man with Zanjeer but it really took off in Deewar. Like so many Bollywood films,
the story drew much from Mother India, but then few films have not. However,
even then it broke many of the unwritten, but long-established Bollywood
rules.

It had only two songs, the ‘qawwali', and the title songs; the hero turned out
to be an anti-hero; there was no innocent virgin, just a very small role for the
heroine and, therefore, little scope for any romance; the lost father died with no
chance of the sort of final scene reunion Bollywood specialises in and the hero
actually died at the hand of his own brother.

In Mother India, the mother kills the son; in Deewar, the bad son,Vijay, played
by Bachchan, is killed by his brother Ravi, a policeman played by Shashi Kapoor.
The climax involves a shoot-out withVijay, dying in his mother’s arms in front
of a temple.

Bachchan’s involvement in Deewar came in the traditional fashion. He was
shooting another film when the script-writers, Salim-Javed, narrated the story.
“We agreed that Yash Chopra would be best suited to direct it. Salim-Javed and
I went over to meetYashji at Girnar Apartments on Pali HiU, where he was then
living.”

Deewar for Bachchan was stark and hard-hitting: ‘There were no duplicates in
any shot, no fancy camerawork to highhght some of the rather stunning stunts,
and no protective paraphernalia to safeguard us from injury. That didn’t exist
then. Stuntmen and artistes suffered in silence. Most of the excitement, however,
used to take place behind the camera, where a very involved and animated Yash
Chopra kept knocking down his assistant every time he shouted,‘Action!’

It was Manmohan Desai who himself narrated the story of Amar Akbar
Anthony to Bachchan but, unlike Deewar, which instantly grabbed Bachchan,
he could not beheve in the film; ‘When Manmohan Desai narrated the subject
of Amar Akbar Anthony at the Mangal lawns one evening, I was flummoxed.
I’d never seen or heard of a guy like Anthony. I laughed out loud, ‘Man (as his
friends called him), what kind of a movie are you hatching?’ And he retorted,
‘Look, as soon as it is released, people on the streets will call you Anthonybhai’.
And he was so right. Throughout the making of AAA, it was a helluva fun ride.
Whether I was handling that Lilliputian horse, Tonga, sweeping the floors to
get on with the next scene, it was aU one combined effort. There was laughter,
gaiety...a fantastically big cast...and ‘Man’ kept us aU going. Even the most
ridiculous moment was meticulously planned.”

The story was the classic one of the cultural unity of India, despite its religious
differences. A father in difficulties abandons his three sons. One of them, Amar,
remains a Hindu; another, Akbar, becomes a MusUm, and the third finds himself
in a church, and becomes Anthony, played by Amitabh. Abandoned children and
their stories are a staple diet of BoUywood but nobody had done it quite this way,
and with such symbolism. In the film, the family is shown splintering on August
15*, just as India did in 1947 and, for aU their different religious upbringings,
the movie emphasises that aU Indians are brothers. The opening credits are
accompanied by ‘Khoon khoon hotaa haipaani nahin’ (Blood is blood, not water),
and the message is the unity of the Indian nation, through the portrayal of a
family reunited, after suffering dreadful loss and much sorrow.

But then Manmohan Desai was a trend-setter in the film industry. His films
generally took place in the scenic outdoors, or they were styhsed by the studios
to look that way, where everyday life could carry on into fantasy. As Bachchan
would later say, ‘Manmohan Desai’s films might be described as ‘fanaticised’
expressions of romantic idealism.. .love, honour, separation, vindication, and
reunion were his abiding obsessions.. .while always containing the key element of
wonderment... To know Manmohan Desai was to know a man of compassion.’
In essence, he adopted the familiar Bollywood formula.

Of the twenty films that he directed in his career of twenty-nine years
(between i960 and 1988), thirteen were huge hits. From 1973-1981, he delivered
box office successes, with Amitabh Bachchan at the centre of these films.

Manmohan Desai, whose name meant ‘mind charmer’, was a child of
Bollywood but fashioned a life story just that bit different. When he married, it
was something out of a Bollywood script. Jeevan Prabha Gandhi, a Marathi girl,
was a woman who was living across the street from him and had smiled at him
from the window. Although, in a technical sense, he was an immigrant, moving
with his Gujarati family to the city at the age of four, he always saw the city as
his home, and grew up with films. His father, Kikubhai Desai, was the owner
of Paramount Studios where he produced thirty-two films between 1931 and

2B0

Bollywood: A History

1941, mostly stunt films. Kikubhai died at the age of thirty-nine from a ruptured
appendix, the irony being that there was no penicillin, though this would be
discovered a month after his death. Kikubhai’s death meant that the family was
left with much debt. Kalavati, his mother, had to sell off the family’s bungalow
and cars to support her family, but fought to hold on to the studio which would
provide a monthly income of RS500 and where the family would live in its four
rooms.

Manmohan had his early film experience when his brother started working
for Homi Wadia. He went on to direct and, in i960, he gave Manmohan, then
aged twenty-four, a chance to direct with the film, Chhalia.

Manmohan rarely left anything to chance and, as Bachchan says, “The only
thing that was spontaneously done in Amar Akbar Anhony was my drunken scene

when he wasn’t present on the sets. He’d left the scene to his assistants. 1 told

his assistants that I’d do the drunken scene based on my observations of someone
who’d get punch-drunk on Calcutta’s Park Street...after having two or three
too many.”

In many ways the most unexpected thing in his life was his death. On i March
1994, Manmohan Desai fell from the terrace of his Khetwadi home in central
Bombay instantly killing him. He was fifty-seven years old.There has never been
any explanation as to why he should have wanted to take his life.

The Great Indian Curry Western

Gopaldas Parmanand Sippy, a Hindu Sindhi, had migrated from Karachi, after
partition, to Bombay with nothing but his wits. Noticing one lunch-time a long
queue outside the restaurant he was eating in, he discovered that these were
office-workers seeking food during their lunch-break. Clearly, there was need for
a restaurant and he quickly hired premises, instantly mortgaged it to raise money,
and opened a restaurant. He then moved into property and got hooked on films
when he built a house for Nargis. He started producing movies in the 1950s but
they were unmemorable, mostly B grade crime thrillers. By the 1970s, having
made money and some more successful movies, he was very keen to make a
multi-starrer, something nobody had dared venture into after Raj Kapoor’s Mera
Naam Joker had flopped, back in 1970.

By then his son, Ramesh, twenty-seven, who had been sent to the London
School of Economics, had decided he would rather be in Bombay and came
home ostensibly to study psychology, but really to work with his father in
films.

He directed Rajesh Khanna in Andaz with some success and had a much
bigger hit with Seeta Aur Ceeta. It was shortly after this that he was presented
with an idea by Salim-Javed for an intriguing film.The idea had done the rounds
of Bollywood. It had been rejected by Manmohan Desai, then an up-and-
coming director and, also, by Prakash Mehra, who was far too busy then with
Zanjeer. The production company Mehra was working for had actually bought
the idea but, at Salim-Javed’s request, they released it, and they now brought it
to the Sippys.

Both these writers were Muslims, although of a very unconventional kind.
Salim, the son of a police officer in Indore, had been spotted at a wedding and
hired as an actor on RS400 a month. Javed, the son of a poet who was a member
of the Communist party, was raised more on the Communist manifesto rather
than the Quran, and his father is said to have recited the Communist manifesto
to his son when he was stiU a child. Javed had come to Bombay hoping to work

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The Great Indian Curry Western

283

with Guru Dutt, but five days later Dutt killed himself, and since then he had
existed on the margins of Bollywood. Salim had become a script-writer when a
director, M. Sagar, unable to find one, had turned to Salim who was working as
a clapper-boy for him. Soon Sagar also offered Javed a job and the partnership
was formed. But while they toiled away, virtually unnoticed, both men were
extremely ambitious and wanted the sort of credit script-writers in Hollywood
got but which was unknown in Bollywood. In the Bollywood pecking order at
that time, heroes were top of the pile, then came heroines, followed by directors
and producers, with the script-writers treated in the same way that upper caste
Hindus had always treated the untouchables: necessary but never to be allowed
inside the tent. Salim-Javed wanted to change that.

They had already worked for father and son sippy, in Seeta aur Geeta, but did
not hke either the money or the pubhcity, or the lack of it. Their biggest grouse
was their worth as script-writers was not recognised. Instead of their script¬
writing being acknowledged, the credits for script in that film was given to
the Sippy story department. Just before they took the Sholay idea to the Sippys,
Sahm-Javed had told Abrar Alvi, Guru Dutt’s script-writer, that script-writers
would one day earn as much as stars. He had laughed, saying, “Have you taken
leave of your senses?”

The idea they had for a story was about an army officer whose family gets
massacred and decides to hire two junior officers who have been court-martiaUed,
but who were really lovable rogues, to help him avenge himself on the killer. In
March 1973, Ramesh Sippy started working with Salim-Javed on the script and it
was quickly decided that an Army background would cause too many problems,
with permission having to be sought from the military for filming, and there
could be censorship headaches. Salim-Javed changed the army officer to a police
officer seeking revenge. By then Ramesh Sippy knew who he would cast in the
film although Amitabh Bachchan was not Sippy’s first choice

Exactly two months before the Sippys began to work with Salim-Javed, they
held a party at father Sippys house on Altamount Road, high above the hiUs
overlooking the sea at Marine Drive—the traditional haunt of the rich and the
well-off of the city. Seeta Aur Geeta was a success and all of Bombay wanted to
know what the Sippys would do next. That evening, many of the leading men
and women of Bollywood gathered there to probe their intentions. As in the
style of such Indian parties, there was plenty of liquor combined with fight
snacks, like pakoras and samosas—the real food would come much later, round
about midnight. And now that prohibition had been relaxed, the liquor flowed
freely and it was mostly whisky. The guests knew that since the Sippys were
well-off, much of the booze would be genuine Scotch, not the foreign-made
Indian liquor, meaning Indian whisky, which others served. By the time the food
arrived it was well past midnight and this is when one of the main stars, who
hoped to be in the Sippys next film, arrived.

The party was an occasion for actors and actresses to parade. The details of what
the Sippys were planning were not known because the Sippys themselves did not
know at this stage. The word was it would be an escapade-adventure film with
many stars. Hema Mafini, the lead actress of Seeta Aur Geeta, which had won her
the Filmfare Best Actress Award, was there, as was her co-star, Dharmendra It was
taken for granted that these two would be in the next Sippy film. But what about
the third main star? The industry sources were sure that it had to be Shatrughan
Sinha, then a leading actor in Bombay. It was the fight scene between him and
Amitabh in Bombay to Goa that had made Prakash Mehra scream out in pleasure.
But he was a much bigger star than Amitabh. He arrived at around midnight and
the moment he did so Amitabh, who had arrived much earlier with a temperature
of around 102 ° and a throbbing headache—for a time he had to fie down in the
Sippy’s bedroom—was edged out. Anupama Chopra describes the scene:

He (Sinha) posed with Dharmendra and Hema Malini, smiling, and slowly edged
Bachchan out of the frame. As onlookers toasted the team, spontaneous applause
broke out. A distributor leaned towards Ramesh and whispered into his ear,‘Yeh hai
app ki casting. Us lambujhi ka sochna bhi mat. (This is your cast. Do not even think
of the tall guy). Ramesh only smiled.

Amitabh eventually secured the part because Ramesh was worried Sinha
would be one big star too many; he already had two. Also, Amitabh had asked
Dharmendra to help and, as Chopra says, “the lobbying worked.” However,
with the success of Zanjeer stfll five months away, it was touch and go whether
Amitabh would make it.

Working in what Chopra describes as a dreary beige, twelve by twelve room in
Sippy’s office, with a semi-circular divan and a barred window, which overlooked
a terracotta-red boundary wall, Salim-Javed and Ramesh formed a script-writing
trio and in a month developed a story that heavily borrowed from foreign
influences, such as Akira Kuosawa’s Seven Samurai, The Magnificent Seven, Butch
Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Sergio Leon’s spaghetti Westerns. But to these
they added those touches that make Hindi cinema so distinctive. If this made it
the first truly masala curry Western, it also carried the story forward with a plot
much tauter than any previous Hindi film of this genre.

Salim worked many real persons into the script. The name of the bandit,
Gabbar, came from a story told by his father, who was a real policeman, about
a bandit with that name.Veeru and Jai, the two main characters, were names of
his college friends; Thakur Baldev Singh, the police officer out to get the bandit,
was the name of Salim’s father-in-law, a Hindu who had opposed his daughter
marrying Salim and did not speak to his son-in-law for seven years.

Like many Hindi scripts, it was originally written in Urdu by Javed and then
translated into Hindi by an assistant. In the way Bollywood films are made,

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Bollywood; A History

actors and actresses heard narration with Javed narrating and Salim butting in to
elaborate or emphasise a point or a scene.

The story, which uses several flashbacks, starts with a police officer, now
retired, called Thakur, played by Sanjeev Kumar, coming back to his place of
work to recruit two small time crooks, Veeru and Jai, portrayed by Amitabh
and Dharmendra He wants them to capture a dangerous bandit called Gabbar
Singh. Then we are told in flashback how Thakur, while stiU a police officer,
had captured Gabbar and put him behind bars. But he escapes and, travelling to
Thakur’s home village of Ramgarh, kills his entire family: sons, daughters-in-law,
grandchildren—aU except one daughter-in-law who, at that moment, happened
to be away. Gabbar wreaks his havoc just before Thakur returns home. The scene
which shows him entering his village, carrying presents for the family, only to
find them butchered, is classic Bollywood pathos. He goes after Gabbar but
Gabbar easily overpowers him and then, in another act of butchery, cuts his arms
off. It is this armless officer who now seeks to avenge himself and while the men
he recruits may be crooks, their hearts are in the right place.

But he warns them that they must not kiU Gabbar. They must bring him back
alive and Thakur wiU deliver justice to his nemesis himself. He wants a helpless
Gabbar to be lying at his feet; the bandit may have hacked his arms off but it
is he who is now made powerless by the power of Thakur’s feet. The original
script had Thakur, having had shoes fitted with nails, using them to crush Gabbar,
hammering them into his body with such force that he ends up a bloody mess.
He then breaks down and cries; he has won but he knows he cannot regain the
world Gabbar has destroyed.

But the censors would not allow such a conclusion to the film.Their argument
was that a film which showed a police officer, albeit a retired one, taking the law
into his own hands was not morally acceptable. Ramesh Sippy was keen to fight
them, insisting they had no right to tamper with his artistic conception, but he
was convinced by his father that the economics of the film, if nothing else, meant
they had to give in and reshoot the ending. So, just a month before the release,
the cast had to be hurriedly reassembled, with Sanjeev Kumar summoned back
from the Soviet Union. This time, the final scene showed that just as Thakur
raised his lethal shoes to crush Gabbar, the horizon filled with policemen and,
overcoming Thakur’s protests, they took over saying that, as a police officer, he
must know this was a matter for the police to handle. This made the ending
contrived in the extreme and made little sense in the light of everything that
had gone on for the previous four hours. As Chopra says, the censors had forced
“an easy pabulum about the virtues of following the law’’ although somewhere
the original ending is available, fuzzy, with poor sound quality, but chilling in
its effect when it shows Sanjeev Kumar weeping after killing Gabbar. Ramesh
Sippy had carefully crafted the violent scenes; very little bloodshed was actually
shown, something rare in Bollywood even today. Even then the censors objected

The Great Indian Curry Western

285

to some scenes, fearing it may become the norm for other Bollywood movie¬
makers to follow. Ramesh Sippy was inclined to reject the cuts but, in the end,
with great reluctance, he accepted, as any delay in showing the film would have
been financially ruinous.

The cuts the censor imposed were extremely irritating but they could not alter
the fundamental way Ramesh Sippy crafted the film, and the way he had used
very Indian themes to make this Indian spaghetti Western.

Sippy, borrowing from Leone, had used silence very effectively. After Gabbar
and his bandits butcher Thakur’s family and ride away, the only sound heard is
that of the empty swing in the courtyard. Sippy also borrowed from both the
Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven to introduce the villain Gabbar Singh. He
makes us wait before we see him; he comes after several scenes have been shown
and one song has already been sung. Even then, his face is not shown immediately.
The sound of shoes clashing onto the rock signifies Gabbar’s entrance. The camera
shows his henchmen’s terrified faces from the angle of Gabbar’s shoes. Suspense is
buHt up through several characters’ hushed mentions of his name and we hear his
very maniacal laugh that would not sound out of place in a mental asylum.

The characters were sharply delineated but, unlike so often in Hindi cinema,
they were not caricatures, but believable. Veeru and Jai do make us believe they
are friends, with Jai having a nice line in sarcasm, always making fun ofVeeru,
whose humour is both broad and rather childish. This is best shown through
their romancing of the village women.

Veeru falls for the local, horse-carriage driver, Basanti, played by Hema Malini,
and Jai starts to have romantic feelings for Thakur’s widowed daughter-in-law,
Radha played by Jaya Bhaduri. To add the necessary secular touch, there is a
Muslim in the village, a very pious man who is the Imam and who is also blind.
He suffers the death of his only son at the hands of Gabbar and his bandits, with
Gabbar sending the body back as a warning to the villagers to get rid of Jai and
Veeru. But, despite this, he supports the desire ofThakur to go after the bandits.
In one scene Basanti, a devout Hindu, is shown leading the blind Muslim Imam
to the mosque, something his murdered son used to do.

Sippy also used the film to comment on the divide between urban and rural
India; between urban sophistication and rural naivety.

This is best brought out when Veeru, frustrated in seeking Basanti’s love, threatens
to lull himself. He does this theatrically, in a drunken stupor and, while villagers
watch, he says in Hindi “Wohi kar raha hoon bhaiya jo Majnu ne LaHa ke liye kiya
tha, Ranjha ne Heer ke liye tha, Romeo ne Juliet ke hye tha... Sooside (he uses the
English word suicide and what he is saying is, ‘I am only doing what Majnu did
for Lada, Ranjha did for Heer, Romeo for Juhet... Suicide)”

One villager turns to another and asks, “This word ‘sooside’—what does he
mean?” The other villager explains, “That is the word English people use when
they want to die.”

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Bollywood: A History

The Great Indian Curry Western

287

Here there are themes common to many Bollywood films. To the villagers of
Ramgarh, the arrival ofjai andVeeru is both a threat and an opportunity. They
represent change but hold out the promise of a happier and progressive future.
Veeru and Jai emphasise their urban outlook by wearing denim jeans. At one
stage. Basanti complains to Jai and Veeru, “Turn shaherwale samajhte ho ke hum
gaonwale ka akal hai nahin (You city people chink that we have no brains).”
These two urban immigrants are shown as being opposed to traditionalism.
Basanti’s aunt refuses to allow her marriage to Veeru to go ahead because he
lacks education, and does not have any great fina.icial prospects. Ramgarh is a
traditional Indian village where elders are respected, but Veeru s refusal to accept
Basanti’s guardian’s final decision, marks him out as a rebel. Here, Sippy, clearly
borrowing from the young rebellious character in both Kurosowa’s Seven Samurai
and The Magnificent Seven, had added a very Indian touch.

Whereas Veeru and Basanti’s relationship is steeped in the traditional Bollywood
style of loud fun and humour, Radha and Jai are united together through silence.
When they meet they rarely speak to each other. Every evening, Jai sits outside
the house playing his harmonica while .watching Radha walk around the
building, turning off the lamps in the house. After that, Radha goes into her
room to listen to the sound of Jai’s harmonica. Every Hght in the house is off
but she does not turn the Hght off in her room. The hght in her room indicates
hope of a new beginning.

But this cannot be. Radha is a widow and in India, particularly in rural India,
widows carry on living after their husband’s death as if their life is over and are
treated as outcastes, a barely-tolerated existence where they always seem to carry
round with them the heavy sorrow of their husband’s death. Jai dares to break
this rule by asking forThakur’s permission to let Radha marry again. Sippy’s film
raises the question of breaking a taboo but ends with tradition maintained. In
the final scene, with Jai andVeeru having done their job, and delivered Gabbar to
Thakur, Jai dies and Radha is left behind in the village, waiting for the real death
to deliver her from the death-like existence she has suffered ever since Gabbar
butchered her husband. Ramgarh wants change, getting rid of the menace of
Gabbar Singh; but will not stand for changing society’s age-old rules. Veeru and
Basanti do find happiness, but only by leaving the village.

It was part of the skill of Salim and Javed that they wrote lines for their
characters which were both witty and struck such chords with the audiences
that they became part of ordinary Indian conversation for decades to come. So
Hema Malini’s Basanti is shown as a chatter-box, who cannot stop talking but,
at one stage, cuts someone off by saying, “Kyunke mujhe befuzool baat karne ki
aadat to hai nahin (I am not one to engage in idle talk).”

While the musical score by R.D. Burman was considered masterful, particularly
the concoction of operatic music during the opening train sequence when
Jai andVeeru help Thakur fend off a group of hijackers, Sahm-Javed’s dialogue

was so pithy that even Burman’s musical numbers were overshadowed, an
inversion of normal Bollywood cinema where audiences quickly forget the plot
and the dialogue but, invariably, remember the songs. Even then, the song that
Jai and Veru sing, “Yeh Dosti Hum Nahin Todenge”( This friendship of ours
will never break) is a classic, made memorable by its filming. Amitabh is seen
riding a motorbike with a sidecar, carrying Dharmendra, playing the harmonica,
on his shoulders. Sippy had decided that this demonstrated male bonding but
the shooting was so intricate that it took twenty-one days to shoot this song
sequence.

The cinematic love between Veeru and Basanti and that between Jai and
Radha was mirrored in real life, although in very different ways. Amitabh
and Jaya Bhaduri got married just before shooting began. They had promised
themselves a holiday in London if Zanjeer was a success but, since their parents
would not allow them to go on holiday unmarried, they got married in a hurry
and went off for Amitabh’s first visit overseas. So, when shooting for Sholay began
in October 1973, and the first scene to be shot was of Amitabh, as Jai, returning
some keys to Jaya, as Radha, she was three months pregnant. Her pregnancy
would cause problems that had to be delicately negotiated, such as Jaya suffering
from morning sickness. She would grow quite plump as the film was shot, and
as the film took two years to shoot, she dehvered a child and remained plump,
which hardly suited a character meant to play an emaciated widow.

If the love in the film between Veeru and Basanti was the standard stuff of
romances as depicted in Bollywood films, the real life one between Dharmendra
and Hema was far more complicated and like the making of Sholay, more like
that of Mughal-e Azam, took years to resolve.

For a start, with Dharmendra married, and with no intention of leaving his
wife, it was a love that dare not speak its name. What is more Hema had another
suitor, Sanjeev Kumar, who was unmarried and had already proposed to her but
had been turned down.

On becoming an actor, Sanjeev Kumar had changed his name from Haribhai
Jariwala, the name reflecting his traditional Gujarati business milieu, with Jariwala
meaning people whose business it is to produce garments of silver thread. The
change was more to do with the fact that, ever since Ashok Kumar, and then
Dilip Kumar, anybody in Bollywood who wanted to be a hero, as Haribhai
Jariwala undoubtedly wanted to be, stood a much better chance if they had
Kumar as a last name. But things did not quite work out like that for Jariwala.
Although one of the few leading actors of that period who had come from the
theatre, where he was a leading light of the Indian People’s Theatre Association,
such were his acting skills and his versatihty that directors often preferred him to
play character roles. In one film, Naya Din, Navi Raat, he played no less than nine
roles. Over the years this would frustrate him and he once complained bitterly
to A.K.Hangal, a legend of IPTA, who played the bhnd Imam in Sholay, about

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289

this. Hangal, who had lived his life in theatres, making only the occasional film
(his biography—almost as an afterthought—listed the few films in which he had
acted) commented tartly, “If you start with a hero’s role, that’s all you’ll remain.
You’ll never become an actor.” But as Sanjeev discovered, a hero in Bollywood
can get other rewards; Dharmendra, who only played hero, got his woman;
Sanjeev did not.

During the making of Sholay, he stayed in a different hotel to where she,
Dharmendra, and many of the other stars of the film, stayed. Never far from his
beloved Scotch, he drank late, ate ever later, often at two or three in the morning,
and slept in late. So, with shooting usually starting at seven in the morning,
Ramesh Sippy made sure his scenes were never shot in the morning. A decade
after the making of Sholay, he died, still a bachelor, while Hema had already
become a mother for Dharmendra’s second lot of children.

Hema Malini has never spoken of her relationship with Sanjeev Kumar,
except to say that they were “too personal and complicated to be disclosed.”

This could be a reference to the darker side of Sanjeev Kumar, in contrast
to the image of him as polished urbane actor who never struck a wrong note.
More than twenty years after the making of Sholay Shobhaa De in Selective
Memory wrote about her experiences with the star when she was editing the film
magazine. Stardust. At an international film festival in Delhi, Shobhaa was invited
to his suite for dinner and was disconcerted to find him drinking heavily. It got
worse when she went to the bathroom. As she was washing her hands:

I saw our host’s face leering stupidly. I turned round calmly, expecting him to
step aside and let me pass. He stood there like an obstinate ox, blocking my way, his
voice of a grain-seller...a shopkeeper.. .his choice of words disgustingly crass...It
was the degenerate nature of his voice that lingered long after I’d forgotten his exact
words. If Id had to hear that same voice from behind a screen. I’d have associated it
with a man born on the wrong side of the tracks—an underprivileged, uneducated,
frustrated labourer, not a refined, gifted actor, whose very presence on the screen
spelt restraint and respectability. So much for illusion.

Sholay was to give a definite impetus to the romance between Hema Malini
and Dharmendra At one stage during the making of the film Dharmendra,
realising that the real star of the film would be Gabbar, which is how it turned
out, suggested to Ramesh Sippy that he wanted to switch to playing him. Sippy
said, ‘“We can talk about it if you want but don’t forget that even though he is
central it is a character role...Besides, if we switch roles, then Sanjeev gets Hema
Malini in the end.” Dharmendra decided that it was too big a risk to take.“Veeru
is good. I think I’ll stick to playing Veeru.”

Dharmendra, keen to develop his romance with Hema ,conceived of a simple
but effective ploy. Chopra writes;

When he and Hema shot romantic sequences, he paid the light boys to make
mistakes so he could embrace her again and again. Dharmendra and the light boys
had a perfectly worked-out code language; when he pulled his ear, the light boys
would make a mistake—mess up the trolley movement or make a reflector tall—but
when he touched his nose they okayed the shot; the fee was Rs too per retake. On a
good day, the light boys returned from the day’s shooting richer by Rs 2,000.

The romance between Dharmendra and Hema was m the classic tradition started
by Raj Kapoor, of the big, brawny northern Indian males seducing the southern
beauty. Dharmendra, who was born Dharam Singh Deol in Phagwara m the Punjab,
had been married at the age of mneteen; two years before he had given up his job,
boring tubeweUs for the American Drilhng Company, to seek the Bombay road to
films that so many northern Indian males, starting with Dihp Kumar, Dev Anand
and Sunil Dutt, had taken. Like them, in his early years he struggled to make a mark,
his muscular frame being considered a handicap, with one producer saying he was
looking for a hero, not a kabaadi player—kabaadi is the indigenous national sport
of India. But women always found him appeahng and, in the early 1960s, after he
had starred in a few action films, a poll in India had voted him one of the five most
handsome men in the world. It was his friendship with Meena Kumari which made
him the talk of Bollywood gossip; the word was they were lovers, and marked a
turning point in his career. Dharmendra himself would recall how in their first film
together she pulled his ear and he blushed hke a schoolgirl and when Meena Kumari
asked what was wrong, he stammered, “Oh it is nothing, just blood circulating. But,
by the time Sholay started, this awkward, beefy young man, who did not know how
to react to women when he had first come to Bombay, had become one who knew
the woman he wanted and was determined to get her.

Hema had a much more middle-class background than Dharmendra, a
background that reflected her very southern upbringing and culture. Although
Hema grew up in Delhi she was from the south, having been born inThrichinapalli
in south India. Her father worked as a regional director of an insurance company
and her mother was a painter, who had also trained in classical Indian singing.
But, like many southerners, she did not have a family name that matched that
of her parents, as even today a southern name incorporates many elements
including clan, village, and caste names. Hema’s mother, for instance, is called
Jaya Chakravarty. And, in the tradition of southern actresses like Vvjanthimala
and Rekha, she was a talented dancer, having been coached in classical Indian
dancing. Producers had initially tried to call her Sujata, as they felt this would
be more appropriate for somebody aspiring to be a great star. It was her mother
who pushed her into acting, with her father being more uncomfortable, worried
by the reaction of his work colleagues to having a daughter in films.

But, like all the southern actresses, she struggled with her Hindi; it had a very
strong southern accent and this caused problems in Sholay, as she was required to

290

Bollywood: A History

The Great Indian Curry Western

291

speak a lot. Initially, she had not much liked her part, that of a women who rides
a tonga, and had complained to Ramesh Sippy that for an actress of her standing
she had a mere five and a half scenes. He frankly admitted to her that the film
was about Sanjeev and Gabbar, but promised that her role would be interesting.
However, when she found that even for the five and half scenes she would always
be talking non-stop in Hindi she bristled, and it required a special session with
Javed enacting her part before she relented. Even then she had to have special
lessons on how to ride a tonga, which took some mastering.

Interestingly, Hema’s mother, who was the crucial influence in her life, was
initially pleased she was working with Dharmendra, as he was a married man
and therefore considered safe.

Despite this, and also the fact that her mother who had pushed Hema into
films, she would often accompany her to most of her early shootings just to make
sure nothing happened to ruin her daughter's much-prized virtue. After that,
Hema had many chaperons and over the years it changed from her mother to an
aunt and then her father taking over to ensure nothing untoward happened. This
could extend to making sure even who sat next to her in the car.

A year after Sholay, while shooting in Malta for Ramanand Sagar’s Charas, her
father, by now worried she would be abroad with Dharmendra for weeks on
end, decided to accompany his daughter.

Hema would later tell her biographer;

And since I was shooting with him (Dharmendra), my father insisted on coming
along with me. Often, while driving to a location, there wou'd be a shortage of
cars and we would travel together. My father disapproved of this because it meant
him (Dharmendra) spending time with me. As we would get into the car, my father
would, in Tamil, warn me to sit in the corner while he’ll sit beside me in the middle.
Father made sure that he (Dharamendra) would not sit by my side in the car. But
he (Dharmendra) was one up on my father. Through some excuse or the other
he would at the last minute open my side of the door, push me in the middle and
eventually sit beside me.

Such childish games between grown-ups is, of course, a revealing attitude of
the control Indian parents try and exercise over their children. Father and son-in-
law-to-be eventually got on, although there would be an amazing drama some
years later which might have taxed even the ingenuity of Salini-Javed. This was
when another actor, Jeetendra, who had played the male lead in many a movie
with Hema and was also single, fell in love with her and made it clear he wanted
to marry her. Hema's mother, who Hema calls Amma, exercising her privilege
as the dominant influence in her life, now suggested this would be a good thing.
And something like an arranged match was organised by the parents for these
two grown-up heart-throbs of BoUywogid. jeetendra flew to Madras with his

parents to the Malini home there and a wedding was quickly organised, with the
registrar summoned to the house to witness the marriage. But before he could
pronounce the couple man and wife Dharmendra, who had been alerted by a
Bombay newspaper, flew into Madras taking with him Jeetendra's long-standing
girl-friend, Shobha sippy. Hema’s father, furious at seeing Dharmendra, shouted
at him, “Why don’t you get out of my daughter’s life? You are a married man,
you cannot marry my daughter.”

Picture the scene. Hema and her family from the south, Dharmendra and
Jeetendra from the north and all of them speaking in English, trying to maintain
traditional Indian norms. Dharmendra, undaunted, took Hema to another room
for a chat, which is said to have involved much sobbing, and Hema eventually
emerged with red eyes and asked Jeetendra whether the wedding could not be
postponed by a day or two. Jeetendra refused and, accompanied by his parents,
stormed out.

When, many years later, Hema spoke about this bizarre episode, the way she
recalled it is as if she had had an out-of-body experience over which she had
no control:

I did not propose to Jeetendra. His parents made the proposal to me. I was
confused. It was the most unexpected thing that has ever happened to me. They
came in the morning. By evening, Shobha had landed there and the matter ended
there. But as far as the press was concerned, that is where the story began.

Hema clearly liked playing games with the men in her life for when
Dharmendra declared his love for her while they were making a movie together,
and asked how she felt for him, she said, “I will only marry the person I love.”
When he protested that was not an answer she said, “That is my answer.”

Jeetendra remained a thorn in Dharmendra’s side for almost half a decade
after Sholay. He had already once stormed onto one set where Hema was in a
film with Jeetendra, and dragged her to her make-up room for a lengthy tear-
filled chat. Bollywood gossip was full of stories that Dharmendra had performed
what is called a gandharva ceremony with Hema, where they exchange garlands
proclaiming them man and wife. But, in 1977, two years after Sholay, when the
film journalist Devyani Chaubal wrote about this, Dharmendra chased her, then
assaulted her, and also M.S. Krishna and the film-maker Basu Bhattacharya. It
would set a precedent for other stars in the future. But clearly this union was still
not pukka, to use that lovely Indian word that the English translation of genuine
does not quite convey.

In 1979, Dharmendra heard that in the film Hum Tere Ashique Haiti, based on
My Fair Lady, Hema had planted a kiss on Jeetendra’s cheeks and also cried in
the movie without the help of glycerine. He decided he had to act and, in May
1980, he married her. What kind of marriage they had is hard to say. Benegal says

292

Bollywood: A History

they had a Muslim marriage, Dharmendra having converted to a Muslim and,
under Quranic law, which applies to Muslims, one can legitimately marry more
than one wife. Shobhaa De has called it a “farcical marriage,”

Conventional, certainly it is not. When her two daughters were born they had
to be legally adopted by their biological father. De describes it as follows;

She lives in her own house with her daughters and picks up all the bills. Her husband
lives with his family in a sprawling bungalow that also houses his wife’s sons (who
have since made it to the movies), their wives and grandchildren. Hema leads a busy,
productive life and looks perfecdy content. There hasn’t been even a whiff of scandal
about any involvement with any other man in all these decades. She deals with her
problems on her own, without resorting to cheap tactics like involving the press in her
affairs. Her references to Dharamji are always affectionate, respectful and indulgent.

Over the years the couple have said little about their marriage. In 1991, when
Hema finally broke her silence, it was only to speak in such elliptical terms that
it is almost impossible to make out what she was saying. The burden of her
speech was that this was a private matter about which no one had the right to
know. Given that she was such a public figure who, during her acting career was
projected as the great screen sex goddess and heart-throb of millions of Indian
males, her answer was a revealing attitude BoUywood stars have to such issues.

The Sippys were not afraid to innovate in making their film. For Sholay,
they decided to make it in 70mm. McKenna’s Gold, which had recently come
to India, was a 70mm movie and had done very well. But this would require
importing new cameras and it was decided to shoot in 35mm, then blow it up
for 70mm.Tests were done with the help of Ajit, one of Ramesh’s brothers who
lived in London, but since not many screens in India had the facilities for 70mm,
it was decided to have two sets of negatives, one in 35mm and one in 70mm, so
every shot was done twice.

It was perhaps in conceiving the bandit of the film, and the location for the
shooting, that the Sippys were at their most innovative,

Bollywood’s bandit movies had traditionally had a standard location. It was
normally always shot in the Chambal Valley of central India.The Sippys decided
to be different and they located the movie in Ramnagaram, an hour’s drive
from Bangalore, which had been selected by art director Ram Yedekar who,
accompanied by a cook and driver, had driven hundreds of miles in south India
to find the place. Bangalore then was not the capital of world outsourcing and
computer technology as it has now become. It was a sleepy, colonial town with
a couple of good hotels, and the Sippy’s film caravan soon monopolised these
during the shooting. One of them, Ashoka,had just opened and was consideredi
the best in the town.The then demure, intensely conservative, southern city ha^
seen nothing like it before. I

seen nothing like it before.

1 Dadasaheb Phalke, the father of Indian cinema, who was inspired to make
films on Indian mythological stories after seeing a movie of Christ. His first

film Raja Harishchandra was made three years before D.W Griffiths’s The Birth of
a Nation.

2 AlamAra, India’s first talkie made
in Bombay in 1931 by Ardeshir
Irani who just managed to beat
competition from the Madans in
Calcutta, the first step in the even¬
tual domination by Bombay of

T*, J • jCI • ^

111 CJik„ even—

tual domination by Bombay of

3 Devika Rani and Ashok Kumar, the first great on-screen couple of Indian
cinema in the 1936 film Achhut Kanya, a Bombay Talkies production. A
Hollywood style studio set up by Devika and her husband Himansu, it intro¬
duced many of the stars who would dominate Bollywood for decades.

5 Dev Anand (seated) with Geeta Bali in Baazi.Anand, Raj Kapoor and
Dilip Kumar were the Big Three who dominated Bollywood for almost four
decades. Baazi, an urban crime thriller made in 1951 by Navketan (Anand’s
own company), saw him became a great star and the film marked the directo¬
rial debut of Guru Dutt, one of Bollywood’s great directors.

4 Three of the biggest names in Bollywood. Dilip Kumar gazing across at
Raj Kapoor, behind whom stands Nargis, in Mehboob Khan’s Andaaz, t\\c
only film in which all three acted together. All had complicated private lives.
Kapoor was more of a filmmaker, Kumar much more the pure actor,
only film in which all three acted together. All had complicated private lives.
Kapoor was more of a filmmaker, Kumar much more the pure actor.

6 Nargis and Raj Kapoor in A warn, the film that saw Kapoor emerge as the
great Indian showman in which he acted, directed and produced.The film for
the first time put Bollywood on the world stage and its songs were sung from
Russia and Eastern Europe to the Middle East and North Africa.The film
Xi'.-v .-ik« aAi’e'-pvxv'oOro fRoG-oiiVi'/e-svoiil? .s-iig-c liMrrcsKoiltls'WcA wrfi'g Vloiii
Russia and Eastern Europe to the Middle East and North Africa.The film

7 Amitabh Bachchan created a new genre in the 1973 Zanjeer, playing the
angry young man seeking justice. The film came after years of failure but
proved such a success that this shy and, for an Indian, exceptionally tall man
whose height had been considered a barrier to success, became the greatest
star Bollywood has ever produced echpsing Raj Kapoor.

8 Amitabh Bachchan riding a bike while
Dharmendra sits on his shoulder. Classic
male bonding in the 1975 Sholay which
is one of the most successful Bollywood
films ever made and created a new genre,
the curry western imitating many of the
features of the spaghetti western.

9 Opposite above: Aamir Khan in Lagaan,
the story of how Indian villagers learnt to
play cricket and ‘defeat’ their British mas¬
ters. This vm the first film to make it ia
the West, crossing a frontier that until then
had proved such a barrier. Khan played the
lead actor but also produced the movie,
managing a cast of Indians and Britons,

__ ^ _I_I. .-u,, r.i™

managing a cast of Indians and Britons,

_ -T*--.! _* I_1._ ni _

10 Salman Khan and Madhuri Dixit in HumApke Hain Kaun. Salman
Khan is the bad boy of BoUywood, being prosecuted for a 2002 case where,
allegedly driving while drunk, he killed some street sleepers. He has also bee
sentenced to prison for shooting an endangered species. Madhuri Dixit, the
wholesome beauty, was the lead actress of the 1980s and early 1990s, then go

ana eany i vyos, men gc

Kiir rf»rnrn^‘^^ rcviiime her

11 Shyam Benegal, a cousin of Guru Dutt, is the director who took Bollywood
to a new level and who sought to make Satyajit Ray-style films in Bollywood.
His fUms have always had a narrative and the remarkable ability to convey his
points in a compelling fashion. He has discovered actors and actresses and shown
great courage in tackling subjects the rest of Bollywood will not touch.

12 K.L. Saigal leaning over Kanan Devi in Street Singer, a film of the vanished
era when Indian actors and actresses could both sing and act. Ironically it was
Saigal, whose voice charmed a nation and produced many imitators, who
started the unique Bollywood phenomenon of actors and actresses miming
to songs sung by others.

13 Rajesh Khanna was the first Bollywood super star who dominated the
^ 1970s before he was swept aside by the Bachchan phenomenon. Here
he is at his height with Sharmila Tagore in Aradhana. She, a member of the
Tagore family, exemplified the Bengah school of acting. She later married
Nawab of Pataudi, the Indian cricket captain.Their son is now in films.

14 Dilip Kumar and Nadira in Mehboob Khan’s Aan, the first attempt at
bringing colour to Indian films. Kumar was already a big name but Nadira
was an unkAown Jewish girl, Farah Ezekiel, then only 20, whose upfixmt sty
was much Uked by Mehboob. But just as the film did not work so she did n
become a great actress, although she continued for years in character roUs

15 Zeenat Aman was
one of the new breed of
actresses to emerge in the
1970s, more willing to
display flesh.This 1978
film made by ITaj Kapoor
Satyam Shivam Sundaram
had Kapoor boasting that
a movie which showed
Zeenat s boobs would
do well.The movie did
however create a rift
between Kapoor and Lata
Mangcshkar, the singer
who sang most of the songs
in his films.

16 Hrithik R,oshan was born with two thumbs on his right hand and was very
;kinny but, helped by his great friend Salman Khan, he developed his body.
Promoted by his father Kakesh Roshan, a well established producer, he then
nade it into films. His first role was a 13 year old with his father in Bhaywan
Dada. Fame came when in 2000 his father made Kayo Naa.. .Pyaar Hai.

The Greai Indian Curry Western

293

With Gabbar, the Sippys had made an important decision, this being largely the
work of father Sippy. Bollywood had a particular way of portraying villains. Many
great stars of Bollywood had played villains, such as Dilip Kumar, but they were
always shown as men who had taken to banditry because the world was unjust.
So Dilip Kumar, in Gan^a Jamiim, had been framed for murder and become a
baddie as had Sunil Dutt andVinod Khanna in their baddie roles in other films.
But, says Chopra, “The Sippys wanted none of these easy cliches. Gabbar was
amoral. He was the distilled essence of evil. He could never be reformed because
he had no sense of right or wrong. And he wore army fatigues.”

Sippy knew Gabbar, the bandit, would be a major figure and his original
choice was Danny Denzongpa who, like Jaya Bhaduri, was a graduate of the
Film Institute and at that time a much in demand actor. A native of Sikkim in
eastern India, he had overcome the prejudice of colour and caste that his looks
generated, being closer to the Nepalese with slanting eyes and other features
common to the inhabitants of the eastern part of the sub-continent, making him
very distinct from the facial characteristics of mainstream Indians. Despite this,
he had became a major Indian actor. Dharmendra was not the only one who
wanted to play Gabbar; Amitabh did and so did Sanjeev.

But then, with shooting just a month away, Denzongpa announced he could
not fulfil his commitment. Like many a Bollywood actor, he had signed up for
many movies; one of them, which was a Bollywood version of The Godfather,
involved shooting in Afghanistan at the same time as Sholay and it was impossible
to change the Afghan shooting days.

The Sippys were faced with a horrendous problem which was again solved by
chance. On the bandstand at Bandra, a suburb of Bombay, Salim met an actor he
knew called Amjad Khan. His forte was the theatre; he was nervous but keen,
growing his hair, blackening his teeth and even becoming religious (the day he
flew to Bangalore for the shooting he would place the Quran on his head and
pray). Amjad worked hard to make it as a film actor; he even took to sleeping in
the army fatigues he had picked up in Bombay’s Chor bazaar.This was a difficult
time for him: his father was dying of cancer, his son was about to be born; his
family fortunes depended on his being a success. But it was such hard going
and he found the rhythms of the film camera so different to the stage that, at
one point there was talk of replacing him. Salim-Javed, having found him, even
such a drastic course of action, but Ramesh Sippy would not hear of
it and his judgement was to be proved right. Amjad Khan’s Gabbar Singh was to
prove an iconic Bollywood bandit although Amjad heard of plans to drop him
and never forgave Salim-Javed.

His animosity against them increased when, at the editing .stage, Salim-Javed,
worried by Amjad’s voice, suggested it be dubbed. His voice was raspy and sing¬
song, when villains of Bollywood were meant to look threatening and sound
like thunder. Dubbing of voices is common in Bollywood but to dub a character

294 Bollywood: A History

would be shattering. Ramesh kept faith with Amjad and his voice would prove
a great best-seller.

Some time after Sholay had become a huge hit, Amjad met Danny Denzongpa.
They were driving in opposite directions near Juhu, a suburb of Bombay, famous
for its beach and an area favoured by Bollywood stars. Danny, who had never
met Amjad, flagged down his car, congratulated him and Amjad thanked him for
making his moment in the sun possible. Danny, too, had reason to be grateful
to Amjad. He was now such a big star that he could charge Rs i.i million for a
movie and Danny, as the man who had turned it down, had hiked his previous
rate of Rs6oo,ooo to over a million.

Amjad also played a key role in one of the Sippys’ major innovations; to hire
foreign technicians for the action shots. Ramesh Sippy wanted the sophistication
that Hollywood showed, but which Bollywood was just not capable of.
Many of the action shots were exact copies of movies such as Butch Cassidy
and the Sundance Kid and Ramesh did not want the Bollywood ones to look
second-rate. Ramesh had originally hired two of Bollywood s best technicians
for action movies—Azeem bhai—he only had a first name, Azeem. bhai
meaning brother—and Mohammed Hussain. Hussain displayed a typically casual
Bollywood attitude which was graphically illustrated when there was an accident
while Hema’s double, Reshma, was riding the tonga.The tonga skidded, Reshma
fell and the wheel went over her and she fainted. Hussain carried on and, when
told about the girl, said, “She’s fainted, she hasn’t died.’’

Ramesh, through his brother Ajit, brought in an English stunt director, Jim
Allen. The English unit faced problems. They had to get used to the heat, and
the song and dance routines and, while everybody spoke English, the English
of some of the actors was very poor while that of others, like Dharmendra, was
difficult to understand. But, above all, the major factor was the fact that stunts
were being performed by people working with primitive equipment and at great
personal peril to themselves.

Ramesh Sippy’s decision to bring Jim Allen and his crew was a major decision.
Hussein and Azeem bhai left and, for the first time in Bollywood since the days
of Bombay Talkies four decades earlier, foreign technical help was being used.
The English, called Angreez, the Hindi word for the English, brought gadgets and
equipment Bollywood had not seen before: pads for shoulders, ankles, knees and
elbows. They also taught the Bollywood stunt people new techniques on how
to cushion falls or time jumps.There were also, inevitably, cultural problems.The
English were used to a more rigorous method of working. During one scene,
where Dharmendra had to shoot with real buUets, he had got drunk sipping
what looked like coconut water but which was laced with booze. The bullets
he fired flew perilously close to Amitabh. It was Amjad, whose English was very
good, who acted as go-between for the Indian action boys and the English, and
helped defuse what might have been a difficult racial and cultural situation. In

The Great Indian Curry Western 295

the end it worked well. Chopra says, “The Angreez thought Paji (a Punjabi term
of respect for Dharmendra) was a world-class star, and he, like the other members
of the Sholay team, acknowledged that the Englishmen had revolutionised Hindi
film action, both in the way it looked and the way it was done”

But if the Sippys would prove themselves innovators, they also clung to
many traditional ways of making films. So, as in all Bollywood films, additions
were made as the film was being shot and through chance encounters. The
film would take two years to make and during that time Ramesh Sippy and his
wife Geeta, visited London. At his brother Ajit’s place, Ramesh heard a Demis
Roussos number. He fell in love with it and wanted to adapt it for the film. But
this meant creating an artificial scene. This was conceived to be Gabbar, after a
weapon-buying spree, coming back to his hideout in the ravines and relaxing in
the evening by listening to gypsies playing a song and dance number. This was
cliche Bollywood; the sequence did not take the story forward in any way but it
enabled Sippy to introduce Helen, who always played the vamp in movies. Javed,
who had worked hard on a taut script, did not like it and there were heated
exchanges between script-writer and director but in the end he gave way and
the song and dance Ramesh had been inspired to include, as a result of a chance
encounter in London, proved a great hit.

The Sippys showed their most traditional touch in the way Sholay’s music was
made. It took a great deal of work and it was the, by now traditional, BoUywood
method of creating songs, dances and music. This was the work of R.D. Burma,
son of S.D, and known as Pancham. He would sit through the story narration and
song situation sessions, and create tunes to match the song sequences required.
The tunes would come before the lyrics were written.

In some ways their most original idea for the music was in the distribution
of it. The music was sold to Polydor, a company owned by Ramesh’s father-in-
law, and which wanted to break the HMV monopoly. Polydor paid Rs^oo.ooo,
a colossal sum of money in those days, and a first for Bollywood. Polydor
would later find that even more than the music, it was the record of the words
spoken, particularly by Gabbar, that would set sales standards that would take
years to break. The financing of the film was more conventional. The Sippys had
budgeted Rs lom and distribution was the usual mix: some rights were sold to
Rajshris, traditional distributors for the Sippys’ rights. These were for Delhi and
northern India, but the Bombay rights were kept by the Sippys.

The problem before the premiere was whether the yomm prints would make
it back from London. Chopra says a senior bureaucrat in the finance ministry had
fallen out with the Sippys and was determined to be difficult. With so much of
the post-production work being done abroad, the permit license Raj was in full
swing and the Sippys had to get scores of permissions.The plan was to collect the
yomm print, have a show at the Odeon in Marble Arch, then fly back to India for
a Bombay premiere scheduled for 14 August, with the film released nationwide

296

Bollywood: A History

on 15 August, Indian Independence Day. Ramesh invited the Indian High
Commission for the London screening but, when the official said he had no
such permission — he only had permission to collect the print and take it back to
India — Ramesh sensed a rat and feared the High Conunission may seize the film.
He cancelled the screening and sure enough the High Commission staff arrived
to seize the 70mm print. When Ramesh Sippy arrived back in Bombay, he was
strip-searched and, on the day ot the premiere, the film was still in customs.

Father Sippy engaged Rajni Patel, a prominent lawyer and close to Indira
Gandhi.V.C.Shukla, Mrs Gandhi's Information and Broadcasting Minister, who
w'as guest of honour at the premiere, intervened and the 70mm was released but
not in time for the premiere, where Shukla and others saw the 35mm version.

The audience at the premiere did not seem to think the film was worth all
the fuss. Nobody cheered; Burman thought they hated it. But Prakash Mehra
realised its worth immediately and wondered why he had ever let this story slip
through his fingers. The 70mm print arrived for a second showing the same
night, and the premiere actually finished at 5 in the morning.

For some time it seemed Burman was right. The critics hated it. Bikram
Singh, in Filmfare, called it, “imitation Western—neither here nor there.” The
Sippys toured Bombay and while there were big crowds wanting to see the
film, despite the fact that this being August, Bombay was in the middle of its
monsoon, there was none of that rapturous approval that marked a hit. A crisis
meeting was called at Amitabh’s house and, according to Chopra, a different
ending w'as discussed. Amitabh was now not the actor who Shatrughan Sinha
had edged out back in January 1973. He was the star of Zanjeer and, also, Deeuar.
Should he die? Or, perhaps he should not die? For a few weeks everyone was
convinced the film was a failure; crowds declined; the press was dismissive and
Amitabh was convinced he was involved with a flop, having seen his career rise
so dramatically since Zanjeer.

Then the tide began to turn, or the realisation dawmed, how different Sholay
was to any other films that had gone before. The owner of the Geeta cinema
in Worli reassured Ramesh Sippy that he had the greatest of hits. “Why?” asked
Ramesh. “Because,” said the owner “sales of ice creams and soft drinks are dowm.
By the interval, the audience are so stunned that they are not coming out of
the theatre.” That is when, says Chopra, “Ramesh understood why there was no
reaction. People were overawed by what they were seeing. They needed time.
Now, clearly, Sholay had found its audience.” Ten weeks after its release, the film
was declared a super-hit. Sholay would continue to find its audience for decades
and father Sippy believes that over the years it has been seen by the equivalent
of the entire Indian population.

By this time, it was four months since Mrs Gandhi had declared a state of
emergency, in June 1975, following a judgement by the Allahabad High Court
that, back in 1971, she had misused her official position to win the elections. For

the first and only time since India’s freedom, the country was not a democracy.
Mrs Gandhi faced opposition demands to resign led by Jaya Prakash Narain,
an old-time politician who had been a colleague of her father, who had also
launched a campaign to rid the country of corrupt politicians. Mrs Gandhi
got so unnerved about possible loss of power that she imprisoned politicians,
censored newspapers and suspended civil liberties and fundamental rights.
Indians, who endlessly debate politics, suddenly found their newspapers were
like Soviet papers, only repeating speeches by Mrs Gandhi. The then President
of India, Zail Singh, said he would gladly “sweep the ground” that Indira Gandhi
walked on. The nadir was reached when a now-forgotten Congress President
called Dev Kant Barooah, said, “India is Indira and Indira is India. Who lives if
Indira dies?”

This had an odd impact on Sholay. The film ran for three hours and twenty
minutes. But, under the emergency, the last show had to end by 12 midnight and
the Rajshris got worried in their territories in the north and asked the Sippys for
a shorter version. But most of the country saw the fuller version and even this
shorter version lasted only for a few weeks.

Yet, in many ways, the emergency helped Sholay in the sense that with
Indians unable to talk about politics, and the papers unable to report politics
in the way they had since 1947, films like Sholay fiUed the gap left behind by
lack of normal political discourse. Papers moved from politics to what they
called human interest stories. In Calcutta, in 1976, a murder of a housewife of a
respectable family, suspected to be have been poisoned by her husband, although
this was never proved, filled the pages of the papers, even such as the prestigious
Statesman which, in the past, would have disdained treating such murders at such
length. But, for a change from Mrs Gandhi’s speeches about the twenty-point
programme, another populist gesture, or the even more appalling speeches of her
henchmen and her son, Sanjay, this was at least diverting news. The emergency
had many consequences, not least teaching Indians how important it was to
value democracy, but it had also unexpected bonuses and helped change Indian
life and Bollywood

Change in a Time of Darkness

Some time at the height of the emergency, the then Indian Minister of
Information and Broadcasting, Vidya Charan Shukla, the man with power of
life and death over Indian cinema, took a drive down Bombay’s Marine Drive.
Sitting in the back seat, on either side of him, was Buijor Karanjia, editor of
Filmfare, whose annual awards are the Indian Oscars, and Shobhaa De, editor of
Stardust, then a brash, provocative film magazine, a few years old. The editors of
the two film magazines were part of a group that met at the city’s Natraj Hotel,
a prominent hotel on Marine Drive—it has since changed its name—to discuss
how to deal with the emergency and diktats at the behest of Sanjay Gandhi.
This required all articles to be submitted to the chief government censor before
publication.

The magazine editors had thought of various ways of coping with this.
One way was to stop writing about Bachchan in retaliation, as it was felt that
being close to the Gandhis, and in particular Sanjay Gandhi, he was behind
the censorship. There was also talk of trying to influence Shukla and, when he
arrived in town, the film magazines decided to invite him to address them at
their Natraj gathering. He was staying at Raj Bhavan, the home of the Governor
of Maharashtra, and Karanjia and De had been sent to fetch him and escort him
to the meeting. The drive to the meeting literally meant the great man would
be coming down, as Raj Bhavan is at the top of the little hill that overlooks the
bay.

De, in Selective Memory, provides a wonderfully sharp vignette of this drive
down one of the loveliest roads in Bombay, that twists and turns as it hugs the
sea at every bend, and the less than lovely atmosphere in the car:

He’d glared at me malevolently after the introductions and snarled something
unintelligible. In the car, as we cruised along Marine Drive, he turned to me
abruptly, and announced ‘ We could hang you in a public square for what you are
writing in Stardust! . It wasn’t a joke. I smiled uneasily and asked him to elaborate.

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He turned his face, looked straight ahead and delivered a stern speech on social
responsibility. B.K’s expression was stiff and frozen. The fixed permanent smile
I’d always associated with him had vanished. He looked visibly paler. We drove
the rest of the way in stony silence. We got to the Natraj and Shukla strode out
rudely and walked to the dais. He wasn’t there to listen. There was no question
of a dialogue. He thundered on about our irresponsible writing and warned us of
worse strictures to follow. Devoid of charm, or even basic good manners, he was the
face of the Emergency—autocratic, despotic, despicable. After he’d left, there was
complete gloom. The directives were harsh and unrealistic. The chief censor had
been instructed accordingly. His red pencil ran through 8o % of all submitted copy.
Often, almost the entire issue had to be rewritten at the last minute.

The Emergency certainly affected Bachchan and his relationship with the
press. Amitabh, who now says that the media has grown more compassionate
towards him as he has grown older, recalls how he reacted:

During the Emergency, a feeling arose in the film media that its imposition was
my doing...because of my family’s friendship with Mrs Indira Gandhi. Without
cross-checking the facts, a ban was clamped on me. I wasn’t to be written about and
my photographs weren’t to be printed in the film press. I felt this was wrong; that
this was a form of misrepresentation. If the press had the liberty to ban me, I had
the liberty to ban them.The ban lasted for nearly ten years till I went into politics.
Since you’re accountable in politics, I started talking to the media. I owed that to
the electorate.

The film magazines survived the Emergency, as did BoUywood. No editor
performed any heroics, none went to jail or was hanged. But then the editors of
all the main Indian newspapers also did not challenge the Emergency in any way.
The only exception m this docile press acceptance of the Emergency was the
editor of, perhaps, one of the least known magazines, the editor of The Eastern
Economist, who wrote some thunderous articles against Mrs Gandhi and only
stopped when his staff, fearful the Government might seize the press and put
them out of a job, pleaded with him to let up.

Yet, if the Indian media was easily cowed down during the Emergency, one
of the most fascinating aspects of that time was that it came just as many things
were bubbling away, which was to determine the course of Indian life for the
decades ahead. Certain changes had started before the Emergency, others started
during it; and the Emergency was a bit like the whole of India being put in a
deep freeze compartment for two and a half years. Then, when it was defrosted,
all sorts of things crawled out.

The start of Stardust was itself an example of this. It was launched in 1971 by a
businessman called Nari Hira, who was then running an advertising agency and

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who felt India needed something in the style of Photoplay or Screenplay. For his
first editor he got Shobhaa De, who proved an iconoclastic figure in the tradition
ofBaburao Patel.

Patel’s Filmlndia had been started in the 1930s by the man who owned a
printing press which produced all the posters and publicity for Shantaramans
Prahhat. Baburao was an unlikely man to produce the coruscating prose which
was often so critical of the stars of the 30s and 40s. When Saadat Hasan Manto
met him he could not believe that this “peasant” with small eyes embedded in a
big face, with a large and bulbous nose, could produce “such elegant and finely-
honed humour.” All the more so as when Rao spoke, his accent turned out to
be, Manto says, “atrocious; he sounded as if he was speaking English in Marathi,
and Marathi in street-Bombayese. And, of course, before every full stop there was
the ubiquitous sala (bastard)” Baburao even called his father, with whom he had
no relationship, a “pucca sala,” an absolute bastard.

His private life matched his language. He had a wife and a mistress, in addition
to a secretary called Rita Carlyle who was, in Manto’s words, “a strong-legged,
bosomy, dark-complexioned Christian girl” who also shared his bed. His style,
when at the office, was to behave like some boss in a B-movie. Baburao would
summon Rita, ask her to turn round, smack her on her bottom and then say,
“Get some paper and a pencil” in readiness for dictation.

By the time Stardust emerged, Filmlndia was old history. Baburao, after
partition, became increasingly political and, after his daughter married a Muslim,
he made his mxagazine a political one calling it Mother India and spewing anti-
Muslim rants. The film magazines that took over the space vacated by Filmlndia
were staid, decorous and almost Victorian, exemplified by Filmfare. Hira, a smart
Sindhi businessman, realised there was a market for something different for the
new Indians who had grown up in independent India and, in Shobhaa De, he
had the ideal editor. Although she had no journalistic experience she was the
supreme representative of what may be called Midnight’s Children.

Born in 1948, she had a degree in psychology from St. Xavier’s College, where
I went to as well, had been a model by the age of seventeen, then by accident
was hired by Nari Hira, first for his copywriting agency, and then for his new
magazine. She was barely twenty-three years when she became editor, never
having been a journalist before. The one big difference between her and Baburao
was that while Baburao, despite being physically ugly, produced trenchant prose,
Shobhaa’s caustic prose was matched by great beauty. When, after some time as
editor, she took her first trip abroad, the Belgian air hostess gushed, “You are the
most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my whole life.” And like most Indians
of my generation and educational background, she hated Hindi films and the
Hindi film world.

I was first made aware of this some time in the mid-yos, just after the
Emergency had been lifted, when I went to interview Shobhaa. She was

dismissive of the lives and loves of the Hindi film stars she chronicled. “I hardly
ever see Indian films. I don’t know film people, I don’t even like them.” She had
a shrewd estimate of her public, “What our readers are interested in is who goes
to bed with whom. Many of them are not sophisticated enough to understand
what we write. They just cut out our colour blow-ups and worship them, or
worse. I don’t know. I don’t even care.”

Twenty years later, when she wrote Selective Memory, her views on Bollywood
had not changed:

Movie people are incapable of normal feelings—loyalty, friendship, caring. But
they get pretty good at faking them. Wide-eyed young people, who walk into
magazine offices, overwhelmed at the thought of meeting their idols, often fail to
recognise the in-built manipulation of the system. Most movie stars are uncouth,
coarse, small-minded egotists. People deal with them at their own peril. So long as
you expect nothing from the association, your sanity is unthreatened. Those who
dare to go beyond that invisible barrier, end up disillusioned and shattered.

In her ten years as editor of Stardust, Shobhaa herself never went to a film
studio, attended a muhurat, or visited a star’s home. She even turned down an
invitation from Ray for a part in his film. “There was no question” she writes,“of
getting sucked into something I wasn’t attracted to in the first place.”

Yet, when Bachchan had his problems, particularly his political problems, the
person he turned to was Shobhaa De, and the great man drove all the way from
his Juhu home to the De house in south Bombay to talk about it.

It is part of the sharp Shobhaa De style of observation that she noticed that
Bachchan, on that visit, was happy to eat frozen samosas and, despite the fact
that he drank three glasses of water and two cups of coffee, he didn’t ask to use
her bathroom.

From the beginning, Shobhaa De ruled out the corruption she says was
then part of film journalism in Bollywood, “Most of the other publications had
routinised the ‘packet system’: specified amounts of cash slipped into marked
envelopes and passed on to reporters on a regular basis. RszjO for a one-
paragraph mention for a new film, and thousands for a well-timed cover.” In
that sense Bollywood had not moved much forward since the 1920s as the 1928
commission of inquiry had reported.

With a largely female staff but recruited, says De, from “good families,” and
with names like Uma Rao, Ingrid Albuquerque and Vanita Bakshi, representing
the cosmopolitan mix of Bombay, the magazine set out to reflect the very
different Bombay and, indeed, India, that had emerged by the 1970s. In the
test piece of journalism that Nari Hira had set Shobhaa, before appointing her
editor, she had written an imaginary piece on Shashi Kapoor, a star (he was not
yet a fuU-blown star then, but on his way to one) who was different. He was no

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arriviste, like many of the other stars, being part of the royal family of Bollywood,
the Kapoors, and younger brother of Raj and Shammi, And his wife was English:
Jennifer, the daughter of Geoffrey Kendal and the sister of Felicity. This meant,
as she herself told me once, that he kept away from the sort of gossip over affairs
and the curious goings-on between Hema, Dharmendra and Jeetendra that was
the staple diet of Bollywood.

The first issue, in October 1971, had a cover story entitled “Is Rajesh Khanna
secretly married?” and was a story given to Nari Fdira by the mother of Khanna s
girl-friend, Anju Mahendroo, in the hope, probably, of getting Rajesh to wed
her daughter. Back in 1966, Anju had made the front page of The Times of India
by announcing her engagement to Gary Sobers, the captain of the visiting West
Indies cricket team, an announcement that provoked wonder and lasted no more
than the proverbial nine days.

She had lasted a lot longer as Rajesh Khanna’s girl-friend and, although the
article did not serve her mothers purpose (Khanna married Dimple Kapadia),
the article was a lot different to the ones that film magazines then ran. What is
more, with Shobhaa and others, who had all been educated in English-speaking
schools, what Indians call English-medium schools, Stardust avoided the sort of
“Marathi-English” for which Shobhaa, despite the fact that Marathi was her
mother tongue, had such contempt, a view echoed by her colleagues.

By 1974, it had a rival in Cine Blitz, started by the brother of Buijor Karanjia,
who edited Blitz, the current affairs weekly; both magazines found that the more
they attacked the stars, the more the stars wanted them. Shobhaa had to appear
in court now and again as some stars, unhappy about what was said, sued. The
most famous was when Raj Kapoor sued them when Stardust called his 1978 film,
Satyam Sliivam Sundaram, Satyam Shivam Boredom but, given India’s arcane laws, and
even more creaky judicial system—the waiting list for cases run into years—these
cases were never heard, only endlessly postponed. Shobhaa recounts how she
would have to stand next to “underage prostitutes, seasoned pimps, pickpockets,
even shackled men accused of murder,” waiting for Nari Hira’s lawyer to ask for
an adjournment. After a few such adjournments the case would be forgotten. Even
Raj Kapoor, after his film was a modest hit, forgot about his court case.

Stardust changed the face of film magazines, forcing others to respond and,
a decade later, when Shobhaa De had left film journalism. Cine Blitz could
trumpet their own great scoop discovering that Dilip Kumar, after spending
a night with a woman from Hyderabad called Asma Begum, had married
her, while remaining married to his first wife, Saira Banu, which he could do
as a Muslim. For several issues it carried on its investigation, culminating in
interviews with Dilip Kumar and discovery of romantic couplets written on
the headed notepaper of the Sheriff of Bombay, which Dilip Kumar had been
in 1979. He was later to divorce Asma, paying her Rs300,000, and it remains a
chapter in his life which he does not like talking about.

The Emergency also saw the start of magazines like India Today, a clone of
Time, which, for the first time, provided India with a national news magazine,
important in a country which then did not have national newspapers. It helped
that the mid-1970s was also to see what, in an article I wrote for New Society in
1977, I called Middle India:

It is an India that has an embarrassingly high reserve of foreign exchange; it
seriously contemplates the export of surplus gram, has discovered off-shore oil,
exports machine tools to Czechoslovakia, and trekkers to England, It is where Mother
Theresa is somebody you read about in the newspapers. It is constantly outraged that
the West always spurns its generous overtures. It would be easy to mock Middle India.

It would be possible to doubt it ever existed. Unlike Middle America, it has no distinct
geographical area. It is distinct from the familiar stereotypes of opulent Maharajas and
diseased Oxfam kids. Basically, it represents those who have reaped all the benefits
from India’s uneven post-independence, the ones who have never had it so good and
are quite determined to enjoy it, whatever the West might say.

This was the period when Bombay was transformed. The Bombay in which I
grew up, in the 1950s and 1960s, was the colonial city the British had left behind.
The highest building in Bombay was seven storeys high, owned by Standard
Vacuum Oil Company which we, as kids, would stand outside and gaze at in
wonder. For us, tales of the Empire State building might well have been scripted
by Jules Verne or H.G. Wells. But this began to change in the late 1960s and
early 1970s. There was further reclamation of land from the sea round Back Bay
and Nariman Point. As a child, 1 had played cricket on the beach at Back Bay.
Now, high-rise buildings emerged as Bombay aped Manhattan and decided to
go skywards. It was in one of these high-rise buildings that Shobhaa De lived
and where, in the 1980s, Bachchan came visiting. Old colonial bungalows were
demolished for such high-rise structures. The original plan had been to build
a New Bombay in Vashi, which was on the mainland across the harbour from
Chembur, where Raj Kapoor had built his studios. But things did not develop
quite as planned. New Bombay did not replace old Bombay. What happened
was that the land between the outskirts of the island city and the mainland
which, when Himansu Rai had built his studio in Malad, was pretty desolate
and rural, now began to be part of urban Bombay. But south Bombay remained
the centre. And round this old island city centre, the area round the old Watsons
Hotel, which had screened the first film to be seen in India, developed a five-
star culture, with new hotels coming and an old hotel, the Taj, getting a modern
foyer. This is where the movers and shakers of Bollywood, who lived in the
growing suburbs, came to display themselves, or just to air their grievances.

It was in the Taj Mahal hotel foyer that the actress Zeenat Aman was publicly
humiliated and abused by Sanjay Khan, who has been both an actor and director

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and who is part of the Khan Bollywood clan (his daughter is married to Hrithik
Roshan, one of Bollywood’s current idols). Khan, whose real name is Abbas, had
designated his Zeenat wife “number two” giving, says Shobhaa De, “a false sense
of respectability and security” before the public humiliation, which included a
slap that permanently damaged an eye-lid. Shobhaa De has described it as “one
of the most sordid and shocking incidents in the history of Bollywood. Had it
occurred in today’s times, it would have made it to the front page of our dailies.
And Abbas would have been jailed for abuse and assault.”

Such assaults were hardly unknown in Bollywood but, in the past, it did not
happen in public view. Nor what followed. Shobhaa, who had herself in her
modelling days been pictured with Zeenat, rang her and Zeenat suggested a
drive. Soon she arrived in a chaulfeur-driven Mercedes. Shobhaa noticed, “One
of her eyes was shut, her face was swollen and black and blue bruises were visible
on her bare arms.” Zeenat had already drunk half a bottle of champagne, with
the rest on the back seat, chilling in an ice bucket. The car drove off towards the
sea face and, recalls Shobhaa,“We watched monster pre-monsoon waves crashing
against the concrete parapet and felt perfectly in sync.This was the closest I’d got
to female bonding at that point in my life.”

As it happened, Zeenat had made her debut as an actress the same year that
Stardust was launched, playing the junkie in Dev Anand’s Hare Ram Hare Krishna,
depicting dope-smoking hippies. This is widely considered to be the best movie
Dev Anand directed and established his reputation for finding new, nubile, young
female stars. Born of a Muslim father and a Hindu mother, schooled for a time in
Los Angeles and with a background in modelling, Zeenat could play the modern
sort of woman, very different to the old style actresses of Bollywood. This
reached its apogee in Kapoor’s Satyam Shivam Sundaram. As Raj Kapoor himself
put it, “Let people come to see Zeenafs tits; they will go out remembering the
film.” And he filmed her in a saree wearing nothing much underneath.

Interestingly, about this time there emerged another actress, Parveen Babi who,
for a time, was known as the poor man’s Zeenat Aman. Shobhaa feels that she is
the most beautiful actress she met in all her time editing Stardust. Like Zeenat, a
Muslim, but from the royal family of Junaghad, Parveen had an ethereal beauty
compared to Zeenat’s dusky, outdoor style, but also gave Shobhaa the impression
that .she was terribly vulnerable. Events would bear this out. She had shot to fame
in 1976, when she made the cover of Time for its story on the A.sian film scene,
a story Parveen claimed never to have read. She was pictured dressed in bra
and panties, posing m the style of a 19305 Hollywood screen goddess, displaying
shapely legs and much midriff. She had quickly tasted success in Deewar, playing
Amitabh’s girl-friend, Anita (the name itself showed modernity as opposed to
Radha, the name Nargis was given in Mother India), who becomes pregnant
with his child. She featured in other Bachchan films but her life outside films was
probably the most turbulent in all of Bollywood. Affairs with actor Kabir Bedi

and then director Mahesh Bhatt, clearly unhinged her. In 1980, she suddenly quit
films, forcing both Prakash Mehra and Raj Kapoor, who were in the middle of
making movies with her, to find replacements, only to reappear while giving
every impression of living in a make believe world. Shobhaa De writes, “she now
existed in a delusionary world, eating up to forty egg whites and raw lettuce a
day, writing reams and reams about Amitabh Bachchan’s plans to eliminate her.
I’d receive some of these press releases which accused the actor of conspiring
with CIA/Mossad/FBl/Ml5, and any other agency you can think of, to kill
her. Wild theories involving radiation, poison darts, killer waves through TV
transmission—Parveen covered them all. Even if the two of them had an affair
and then a falling-out, her charges were those of a seriously ill person.”

It was again at the Taj, in its shopping arcade, that Shobhaa De was to see
Parveen Babi, her figure now bloated, her skin blotchy; De realised the waste in
this once-beautiful woman.

Shobhaa De’s reference to an affair between Parveen and Amitabh is interesting
because that was the gossip in Bollywood and, what is more, the gossip that her
own Stardust and Cine Blitz was often talking about. They also reported other
alleged affairs and, in May 1982, Cine Blitz ran an article entitled “After four
Years of Silence, Rekha’s bitter outburst.” Rekha, daughter of Gemini Ganesh, a
famous actor of the south, had overcome the problems of a podgy, dark youth (a
dark complexion in colour-conscious India can be a terrible handicap) and the
problems of speaking Hindi with a very southern accent, to become a sensuous
femme fatale. In this interview, the journalist who signed himself Swaminathan,
described how he had door-stopped her at her “forbidden-to-all bungalow,”
being let in by a certain Jungabahadur, one of two security men, and found
Rekha dying to talk about her life and loves: Amitabh and Parveen. She kept
referring to Amitabh as Amitji and said ,while he had never promised marriage,
he had said for “my satisfaction we could do the Gandrvivah.We garlanded each
other atTrupathi.” She then spoke of Parveen and her alleged involvement with
Amitabh and the interview ended with Rekha saying she would take a break
from films for six months and go to the Rajneesh Ashram in America.

But ten days later the same reporter saw Rekha on the sets of Pukar, a
film starring Amitabh; Zeenat Aman was a co-star, and Amitabh and Rekha
seemed friends. The journalist wrote, “She didn’t look pathetic any more and
the only conclusion I could come to was that Rekha had forgiven Amitabh
and Parveen.” Whether this made the interview she was reported to have given
another example of delusionary thinking, it is impossible to say. Years later, when
Bachchan was asked about Rekha, he said,“It was pretty natural for the media to
write reams about us. Stars have always been the butt of speculation and yellow
journalism.”

This yellow journalism, if that was what it was, was in marked contrast to the
way Filmfare had reported the relationship between Dilip Kumar and Madhubala

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two decades earlier. When Bunny Reuben interviewed a desolate Madhubala,
unburdening herself about her love for Dilip Kumar, he found he could not
report it in full in his magazine.

India, emerging from the deep freeze of the Emergency, was finding a new
voice, Bollywood in particular. It did not hide away in bungalows, far from town.
This was the period when the marriage between Bollywood and cricket began
to take place, quite literally. In 1979-80, when the Pakistani cricket team came
on tour, their cricketers, in particular Imran Khan, were much sought-after.Their
defeat at the hands of the Indians was later to be attributed to their dalliance
with Bollywood starlets. One of the cricketers, Moshin Khan married an actress
and, later,Vivian Richards fathered a daughter with another actress. Both Zeenat,
who never recovered from the Khan assault, and Parveen, had burnt-out by
the beginning of the 1980s but, while they flourished, they defined the new
Bollywood film actress, the female symbols of Middle India.

It was Middle India that welcomed Mrs Gandhi’s Emergency, because law and
order and firm Government are favoured ideas. Mrs Gandhi’s Emergency rule
brought together a package that these Indians had always wanted. No sudden
power-cuts, which can make life in many cities a living heU, no handhs (strikes),
that can immobilise cities for days, and no rioting students or workers. Although
middle Indians, as a class, have benefited most from Indian democracy, they are
also its greatest critics. Many of them often never vote. It is the poor in India
who always vote. It is this paradox that explains the fact that Kemal Ataturk had
long been every middle Indian’s favourite “benevolent” dictator. Soon after Mrs
Gandhi’s Emergency, arguments were quickly found to support her decrees:
a poor peasantry, a huge army of illiterates, and a lack of communal sense of
discipline.

What was interesting was that even the rigours of emergency did not
completely erase Mrs Gandhi’s reputation as a liberal compared to the rigidity
of her successor, Moraiji Desai.This was not because of Mrs Gandhi’s economic
or political policies but because she touched those aspects of life which
middle Indians hold dear. She soft-pedalled prohibition and relaxed foreign
travel—things that always meant more to middle India than a free press or an
independent judiciary, let alone ministerial threats to hang film editors. At the
height of the Emergency rule, 1 complained to one of Mrs Gandhi’s admirers
that she had killed free speech. He laughed, “Killed free speech? Why, I have
been saying what I like. People who come here can talk freely.” As he did so he
waved his arm round his weU-manicured lawn, clearly showing the area of free
speech that mattered to him. Democratic liberalism, it was felt, excited unbridled
populism and Mrs Gandhi’s warnings about “unlicensed freedom (a very
revealing phrase) won universal middle Indian approval. It reflected the genuine
fear among many of being sucked back into the growing jungle of mass poverty
from which middle Indians had just emerged.

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In a sense, middle Indians were right. While in i976,Amrit Nahata’s political satire
Kissa Kursa Ka was banned and destroyed, the same year Mrs Gandhi personally
intervened to help the career of a man who can rightly claim to be the greatest
director of Bollywood, the one man worthy of being spoken of as a successor to the
great Ray. His greamess lies in the fact that while working with BoOywood he also
demonstrated you can make movies that teU you about life, rouse you to anger or pity
and have a message, but are entertaining as well. This was not just Bollywood masala,
but was spiced with the sort of ingredients that great film-makers of the world use.

It was 1973 when Benegal, thirty-eight years old, after twelve years of effort,
finally managed to release his first film, Ankur. The film, set in Hyderabad in
south India, where he had grown up, dealt with rural oppression and human
tragedy. The rich son of a zamindar returns home from the city and, finding that
the maidservant of the house has a deaf mute husband, seduces her. The woman
gets pregnant and the wife discovers the secret leading to the climax of the film.
The movie, superbly filmed by Govind Nihalani, introduced a whole host of
new actors and actresses: Shabana Azmi, Anant Nag and Sadhu Meher.

Various influences had been at work on Benegal before he could finally make
it into films.

I admired a number of film directors but the man whose ability I’ve always admired
was Satyajit Ray in India. In the world of cinema, Ray’s coming created a revolution.
What he did was nothing short of a teal revolution .That affected a lot of young people.
Even Mrs Gandhi was so impressed with Ray. When she was Minister of Information
and Broadcasting, she started the Film Institute. The idea of what is good cinema, a
benchmark of good cinema, was Satyajit Ray. You had to make good films that set the
model. I also admired to some extent Ritwik Ghatak, in his time, but he was such an
erratic kind of genius and he made such uneven films. I wouldn’t say admired, but I
did like some of the works of directors who made films for Prabhat or people like
Bimal Roy, Mehboob, Guru Dutt or Raj Kapoor

And K.Asif?

Asif was theatre, rather than cinema. Mughal-e Azam was an attractive film, very
enjoyable. Mother India is an archetypal Indian film. Every other film that has been made
since then has taken something from Mother India. Mother India was probably the most
important Indian film ever made. I don’t believe any other film had that kind of impact
on film-making in popular Indian cinema.The structure of the film and the story of the
film. It is Nehruvian but the important thing there is that it caught the imagination of
the Indian people in a fashion that you can only attribute to great epics.

Benegal, working in Bombay as a copywriter and making commercial films
for companies like Hindustan Lever, struggled to make his first film:

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It took me twelve years to make it. For twelve years nobody would put any money
into it. I went to just about very producer I could think of. AH the big ones of the time.
Finally, the person who produced it was a man used to distribute advertising films, not
films. A company called Blaze and the person was Mohan Bijlani

Did Benegal ever think of approaching Raj Kapoor?

Raj Kapoor? He would not have been accessible to me at that time. He would
not have entertained even a conversation. Later on, he was very good. After Ankur,
he liked Ankur. I got to know him.

But Ray played an important part in helping Benegal.

Satyajit Ray certainly had a tremendous impact on me because he seemed to be the
kind of person who made the kind of films 1 wanted to make. He was a kind of guru
figure. [At his university, when Benegal founded the first film club, the inaugural film
was Father Panchalt] . He loved Ankur. He said very good things about it, which helped
me. 1 invited him to see the film before 1 released it. It was at a little theatre called
Blaze Minuet, a miniature theatre between Woodhouse Road and Colaba Causeway,
near the Archbishops house. 1 used to edit there. 1 invited Ray to see the film. He saw
it and hked it very much. He insisted on writing something about it, which he did.
Then it appeared in his book. He wrote a lot about it. More that that, when I showed
him the film he asked,“What do you hope for this film?” 1 said,“l hope it will run for
a week-end at Eros.” He said,“It wiU run for many week-ends.You mark my words.”

Ray was to be proved right. Benegals film was a landmark for Bollywood: the
first film to break the Bollywood format.

When I started making films, there were several people who started around the
same time as 1 did and who were also making films against the grain of popular films
being made at the time. Some of the films went way out into what could be only
connected with the kind of cinema experimentation that was going on in the West,
particularly in countries like France and lots of other countries. But 1 was not going
in that direction. I wanted to make films that would entertain people because 1 want
to make films which 1 could enjoy watching. 1 never really moved out of making
narrative films. My films always told a story. Also, when 1 was making these films,
it wasn’t as though they had had an opportunity to find their place in the world
of Indian cinema. 1 had proper actors and actresses, people who had been trained.
When 1 started, Shabana was a trained actress, as was Smitha Patil and Dadu Meher,
the fellow who played her husband. The hero, Anant Nag, the cowardly character,
was not, but he was an experienced theatre actor. Some, 1 went after; others, came to
me. Shabana Azmi came to me.

The film came at the right time and was also important for one very significant
reason. It finally broke the social barrier that had since the start of Hindi cinema
kept them out of the posh cinema houses of south Bombay, where the norm was
always to show Hollywood films. Benegal recalls:

That was the first time Eros had shown a Hindi film. It was easy. Because all the
Fort, south Bombay cinemas, which used to show Hollywood movies had a paucity
of American films. The Government of India was going to allow only a certain
number of American films to be imported. The reason was at that time India had
decided that they were not going to allow Hollywood films to monopolise the
screens. 1 am talking of the early seventies. We also had foreign exchange restrictions,
and these people were not allowed to take the money back. So, suddenly, all these
cinemas, particularly in the metropolitan cities, where you had cinemas that
traditionally showed English films, English language films, found their screen plan
was absolutely free. They didn’t have any films to show. So, when I started making
films, these theatres were open to me.The audience that started to see my films was
the same audience that would have previously seen a Western film. The clientele
that missed seeing Western films, now started to see mine. So, that became a market
for what today we call parallel cinema, alternate cinema, whatever. They decided
to stamp that label on my kind of films. But, popular cinema itself continued in
its own merry way. However, with technological advances—sounds getting better,
more sophisticated surround sound, and the whole business of block-busters and
television coming in—mainstream cinema had to suddenly compete with all these
changes. They could no longer make the kind of films they were making. They
had to approach it differently, but they didn’t make the content different. Content
remained the same. But many of the characters these films portrayed, changed.There
are many other reasons for the changes that came. Also our inema houses had to get
better because, before that, our cinemas for years used to be dumps.

Ankur had not cost a lot of money. Even for 1973, about five and half lakhs
(Rs 550 ,ooo) was not a great deal. His next major film, Nishant, made in 1975,
would cost more: 9 lakhs (Rs9oo,ooo) and also cause Benegal to come to terms
with the Emergency. This meant coping with Shukla and showed a different side
of Mrs Gandhi. Here again, Ray would play a crucial part.

In this film, Benegal took a real life incident which took place in 1945
in princely India. Again, it was set in rural India and showed how the rich
landowners can be tyrannical. A school teacher, played by Girish Karnad, arrives
with his wife, played by Shabana Azmi. A member of the landowner’s family—
one of four brothers—kidnaps her and rapes her and the film, whose title means
Night’s End, is about the teacher seeking justice.

In the film, Benegal introduced another young actor, Naseeruddin Shah, who
had always wanted to be an actor, trained at the National School of Drama and

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was later to become a director. Benegal had also decided to have Kulbushan
Kharband in the film and sent him a telegram to come from Calcutta for a
two-day shoot in Bombay. He drove to Calcutta airport on his scooter and left
it in the parking lot expecting to be back in a few days. Contrary to normal
Bollywood practice, Benegal required all his actors to be on the set from Day
One to the end, even if they were to appear only fifteen days later. Kulbhushan
did not get on till day thirty-nine and then stayed on in Bombay for another
three years, all this time his scooter was parked at Calcutta airport.

Benegal must have felt almost as neglected as the scooter as he tried to get the
film past the Indian censors. Benegal has always had problems with censors.This
was not the usual problems with kissing, that Bollywood films had. Benegal’s
problems were on an altogether different level;

I’ve always suffered with the censor. Because I make a certain kind of film, and
more people think that my films have this serious intent behind them, so the censors
have always looked at them much more carefully. They feel my films attract greater
attention and people who see them would treat them more seriously, as against films
on the popular level, which the censors think that audiences don’t take seriously. So it
doesn’t really matter what they do in those films. In contrast, in my films, when people
do something in the film, it matters. So I have a constant batde, a constant tug of war.

But, with Nishant, it seemed he was destined to lose. It was 1976, the
Emergency was at its height and Sanjay Gandhi had just launched his forcible
sterilisation campaign aimed at the poor:

This was 1976 .1 had a big problem with Nishant.Thc censors banned the film. In
those days it was very difficult. Meanwhile the film was being shown abroad. The
film was in the Cannes film audience. It won the audience award. Then it was in
Toronto, then in the Vancouver festival. Now, it was already a weU-known film But
it was not shown in India. Ray wrote a letter to Mrs Gandhi with signatures from
Mrinal Sen (another famous Bengali film director). She was a great fan of mine,
of my first film Ankur. She used to show the film to her diplomatic guests, or to
anybody who was her guest. She asked for the film to be sent to Delhi. She told her
social secretary to get in touch with me. She saw the film and then she called the
Information and Broadcasting Minister,VC Shukla. She said to him:‘You know this
will cause me and my Government a great deal of embarrassment. This is a much-
lauded film. I did not see anything wrong with it.You must find a way of removing
the ban.’ Shukla was very angry with me.

He called me to Delhi. I went to his office. He made me stand throughout. He
did not ask me to sit down. He was a very arrogant man. He was having affairs with
aU sorts of htde starlets. He said ,T know your film. We will pass it and there will be
certain conditions. 3 have already asked my ministry to give you a censor certificate.

When I went to the ministry there was S.M.Murshid, Joint Secretary for the
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. This was his last day in office. He was
going back to Calcutta, to the Bengal cadre of the civil service, where he came
from; he would later become the Bengal Marxist chief minister, Jyoti Basu’s, chief
secretary. He said,‘Don’t pay attention to him. We will pass it without cuts. What I
will do is ask you to put a card in front of the film. The card must say: the events in
the film took place before India’s independence.’ I said, ‘I will put that; no problem.’

So we put it.Whenever we had a screening there was a huge roar from the audience
the moment they saw the card. The audience realised how stupid it was. That was
the worst censorship problem I encountered.

Even during the Emergency, Benegal went on making films. Mantan made in
1976, cost II lakhs (Rs i.i million) and was financed by 500,000 farmers, each
of whom contributed two rupees. It again dealt with rural India, the problems
of a dairy owner, who exploits the farmers, a veterinary surgeon, who is part
of a Government team, and the rise of a local untouchable leader, played by
Naseeruddin Shah, who makes sure the farmers’ co-operative wins.

In the decades that have followed, Benegal has tackled a number of subjects.
There has been the story of Hansa Wadkar, a 1940s star of Marathi folk theatre,
whose life had no shortage of men or drink in Bhumika, a film that Derek
Malcolm thought was “a magnificent visual recreation of those extraordinary
(hys.” Junoon was historical, based on the Indian Revolt of 1857. A group of Indian
rebel soldiers led by Naseeruddin Shah attack a British church. Grandmother,
mother and daughter, Ruth, escape and take shelter with a Hindu servant. But
there a man called Javed Khan, who has always fancied Ruth, who finds them.
When he hears Delhi has fallen to the rebels, he goes to join them, is killed, and
Ruth ends her days in England, never having married. In the film, Shashi Kapoor
played Javed, and his wife, Jennifer, the mother of Ruth, and they both financed
the film. Made five years after Ankur, it cost 60 lakhs (Rs 6 million).

It proved a commercial success and the Kapoors also financed his next
film, Kalyug, made in 1981, where Benegal borrowed from the Mahabharata
to illustrate the feuding of two industrial families. That cost 85 lakhs (Rs 8.5
truUion) and was not well received; Garga felt that, in that movie, Benegal had
bitten off more than he could chew.” But his next film, in 1983, Mandi, cost half
as much and again showed his range, this time for comedy and wit, being based
in a whore house.

By this time Benegal had, in effect, created a school of film-making with other
film-makers following in his footsteps, giving greater weight to the concept of a
cinema parallel to Bollywood. His cameraman, Govind Nihalani, had ventured
into films in 1980, with Aakrosh, where a tribal, played by Om Puri, is accused
of murdering his wife. He remains stubbornly silent and his lawyer, portrayed
by Naseeruddin Shah, has to discover the truth. It highlighted the plight of the

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tribals and Nihalani showed a mastery of directorial ability. Nihalani followed
this with Ardha Saty, which tackled the nexus between politicians and mafia and
then, in 1997, came Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa, where a woman gets a call to say
her son’s body is in the morgue. The film marked Jaya Bachchan’s return to the
cinema after seventeen years, and it dealt with the problems in Bengal in the late
1960s and 1970S when, inspired by Mao’s Cultural revolution in China, many
middle-class young Bengalis gave up their comfortable life-styles to take to the
gun and the bullet and overthrow what they considered the corrupt feudal/
capitalist system. They took their name from a place called Naxalbari in Bengal,
where the revolution had started.

Three years earlier, in 1994, another film-maker, Shekhar Kapur, nephew of
Vijay and Dev Anand, had emerged. Bored with accountancy, which he had
studied in London, he went into films and, after a stint as actor, he got noticed
in 1983 with his directorial debut, the coming-of-age story, Masoom. He found
real fame with his 1994 film. Bandit Queen, the story of Phoolan Devi, a real
life bandit queen. Married off at an early age, she was gang-raped and then,
in revenge, became a bandit before giving herself up to the authorities and
eventually becoming a Member of the Indian Parliament. She would herself
be gunned down, but that was some years after the film was made. The Indian
censors did not like it and Devi herself protested at the film’s graphic content but
it was both a commercial and critical success. It was well-received at the Cannes
Film festival and Philip French, in The Observer, would comment, “to have some
notion of its moral seriousness and cinematic power you should imagine a
collaboration between Satyajit Ray and Sam Peckinpah.”

The success would enable Kapur to become the first Bollywood director
to work in Hollywood, making the historical biography Elizabeth, with Cate
Blanchett as Queen Elizabeth I, in 1998. After residing back in India for a few
years, he returned to the US to make the 2002 film adaptation of The Four
Feathers.

There are other film-makers, such as Aparna Sen, who also owe much to
Benegal but, if he spawned his own school, then he has proved he can still be
the master of the Parallel Cinema, willing to go into areas other film-makers in
Bollywood dare not venture. So, he tackled Gandhi in South Africa. Then, in
2005, came his film on Subhas Bose, one of the most controversial characters in
twentieth century Indian politics.

For Benegal to tackle such a controversial subject showed the man’s courage.
Many years ago, just as Richard Attenborough was making his Gandhi film,
Satyajit Ray came to London and spoke at the National Film Theatre at London’s
South Bank. He was asked whether he had ever considered making a film about
Gandhi. Although he neatly ducked the question, the impression created was
that he did not want to handle such an explosive subject. It had always intrigued
me that India’s greatest film director did not want to make a film about India’s

greatest son. It suggested that Indian film directors, however eminent, felt such
subjects were far too controversial to tackle.

This is where Shyam Benegal broke new ground but he had to tread carefully.
Bose had produced a child with an Austrian woman whom he had never legally
married; it was more like the sort of weddings Bollywood stars have. Many refused
to accept that he had fathered a child. He had, during the Second World War, gone
to join Germany and Japan to help get rid of the British from India; he had never
returned from the war but his followers refused to believe that he had died in an air
crash. As Benegal was making his film, a third inquiry into Bose’s death was being
conducted by a former judge of the Indian Supreme Court.

In the film, Benegal neatly avoided the death controversy by not telling us
how Bose died. His film called Forgotten Hero, which dealt only with the last
four years of his life, ends with the plane taking off in August 1945 from Saigon.
Then EmiHe, Bose’s Austrian wife, is shown peeling a fruit in her flat in Vienna
when she hears the news of his death through a BBC broadcast. The implication
is clear but perhaps Benegal felt actually showing the crash would have been a
final Bose frontier too difficult to cross.

As for Benegal’s other problem (Emilie Schenkl, and Bose’s relationship with
his Austrian secretary), Benegal showed a marriage ceremony in Berlin some
time in 1941, with a German professor acting as the Brahmin priest while the real
Brahmin ACN Nambiar, who worked for Bose, looked on. No such ceremony
took place; it would have been difficult in Nazi Germany. In any case, Bose and
Emilie did not become man and wife in 1941, but in 1937.To be fair to Benegal,
Bose has left Benegal a wretched pack of cards as regards his marriage. Not to put
too fine a point on it, Subhas Bose was deceitful about his marriage both with
his family and the Indian nation. He kept quiet about this relationship for eight
years although towards the end of his life he appears to have suffered agonies
about what he had done.

To make matters more complicated, not only was there no proper marriage
ceremony, there was no marriage certificate. However, the fact remains that
Subhas and Emilie were man and wife and there is overwhelming evidence to
prove that, including a letter he wrote his brother Sarat; and Subhas and Emilie
produced a daughter called Anita, who is still alive.

To add some masala, Benegal made the Emilie in the film more glamorous
then the Emilie in real life. But, in keeping with Hindi film convention, Subhas
was never seen kissing Emilie and there are no intimate scenes.

When I asked Benegal about this he said, “Amartya Sen asked me the same
question. ‘Why didn’t you show some kissing?’ I said ‘Are you kidding? I have
got to live in India’”

Benegal decided not to show Bose kissing because he realised that while the
censor is more flexible about kissing, one of India’s great icons kissing a white
foreigner on the screen would have been explosive:

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Our censorship is extremely crazy and whimsical and quite erratic. Western
films always had kissing. Men and women kissed each other constandy in American
films and in European films. The censor board in India decided that was okay
for the West, but public demonstration of this kind of affection is not part of
the Indian ethos, and certainly not part of everyday behaviour among Indians.

So any such suggestion in films would be immediately excised. That is what
happened and remained that way for a very long period of time. Kissing is now
allowed. And, certainly in metropolitan cities, it is not a big deal to see young people
cuddling up with each other. But I wouldn’t say it’s common behaviour. You don’t
see it happening at bus-stops and tube stations like it might happen in Britain or
in America. But it certainly is a litde more than it used to be in India. In the past,
the censor board would automatically go for their scissors. They don’t do that any
more.

Senegal’s Bose 61 m is beautifully done and the portions describing Bose’s
escape from his home in Kolkata, via Afghanistan to Berlin, shows Senegal to be
a masterful 61 m-maker.

So, in real life when Bose was told he had left British India and was now in
free tribal land bordering Afghanistan, he jumped up in the air, stamped his feet
on the ground and shouted, “Here 1 kick George VI, here I spit in the face of
the Viceroy.”

In the 61 m, Senegal makes Bose ask Bhagat Ram, his guide, for a coin which
has the face of George VI. He then tosses the coin on the ground and kicks it and
spits on it, with Bhagat Ram joining in. The poetic touch of the coin Senegal
adds, makes this scene aU the more dramatic.

Senegal dwells too long on the battle scenes in Imphal and Burma, as the
British and the Japanese fought for that part of India. In his earlier historical 61 m,
Junoon, there had been criticism of his handling of the battle scenes of the Indian
Revolt of 1857, what Subhas Bose always called the First War of Independence.
The same criticism can be made of what some Indian historians call the Second
War of Independence. Senegal presents the Indian National Army in a more
glorious light than justified by the historical record. Their contribution to the
battles was negligible and hardly very heroic. The fact is Bose’s INA was in the
main opposed by Indians hghting for the British. 2.8 million Indians fought
for the British during the Second World War, the largest volunteer army in the
world, far more than fought with Bose. Senegal does not dwell on all this and
throughout the film we are presented with a Bose v. British fight when, in reality,
it was a Bose v. British plus Indian collaborators.

But then Senegal had always been attracted to the INA as a subject, having as
a child heard stories about Bose and his army, recruited from Indian prisoners of
war the British had surrendered to the Japanese;

My father’s cousin was one of Subhas Boses’Tokyo boys, the boys Subhas Bose
had sent to Tokyo to be trained by the Japanese. He was with the Imperial Military
Academy in Tokyo. He came back to India after the war and went through a very
bad time because of his INA connections. He applied to the Indian Air Force.They
would not take him because of his INA connections. They took him in 1949 or
1950 but the recruiting officer who took him was demoted. He became a brilliant
fighter pilot. In 1965 , he got the Mahavir Charka for the famous Sargodha attack in
West Pakistan. He led the attack.Then he got the MVC over Dacca. He was taking
pictures of Dacca airport. Then, later, the Indian Air Force bombed the airport in a
particular way. He was a decorated officer. Eventually, he retired as Air Commodore.

I heard his INA stories as a child.

And for this 61 m, Benegal found corporate backers, illustrating the way
Bollywood was becoming more like Hollywood and getting away from
the cottage industry style of 6nance that had traditionally characterised the
industry.

People from Sahara [a big Indian corporation] had contacted me. ‘We want to do
a series on the national heroes’ they said. I said I had already made a film on Gandhi
in South Africa.The only person I hadn’t done anything on was Bose.That is why
I choose those five years. For a lot of Indian historians that is the most controversial
period and they are a little worried about dealing with that. Why should I worry
about that? In making the film I had not only to get the finances but break through
all sorts of barriers and look at the man from his own time.

Benegal approached the work in his methodical way in contrast to most
Bollywood 61 m-makers.

You have your project, you do your research, get your script and then get your
actors and actresses. I had done auditions of all the German actresses when I was in
Berlin. I had gone for a recce. It was a very Western way of making films.

But Benegal’s problems were not over once the film was made. After that
Benegal had to put up with legal actions by Bose’s so-called followers who bled
court cases, frivolous but time-consuming, to stop the film. He had a private
showing for the Bengal chief minister to make sure he was happy and then found
the premiere moved because of local difficulties. Benegal was also aware that, in
tackling history, he was taking a risk.

Indians are reluctant to take to historical films. Film-makers try an estimate what
would be of popular interest. In many ways that thinking is not incorrect. In India,
historical films have never done well. Unless they are what we call costume dramas.

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Not real history. Mughal-e Azam is not history. It is costume drama. Aarmr Khan’s
The Rising.The Ballad of Mangal Pandey. Forget about its accuracy. Indian audiences
are not concerned about that. It has been a failure because historical films do not
work very well.

Benegal’s film on Bose did not buck that trend. Aamir Khan’s The Rising:
The Ballad of Mangal Pandey was also not a box office success, and provoked
controversy in Britain as British historians felt it did not accurately reflect the
Indian Revolt of 1857. However, in 2001, Aamir Khan had shown with Lagaan
how to spin a fairy tale as a historical drama.The history it showed was extremely
debatable but the story-telling quite magical. That film would also make history
as the first film that enabled Bollywood to cross the final frontier and make the
biggest film-producing country in the world weU-known, if not acceptable, in
the West.

The Final Frontier

On the afternoon of August 14, 1999, a small group of people met in the sitting-
room of actor Aamir Khan in south Bombay. They had gathered for the narration
of a film that Khan was to act in, a fairly commonplace event in Bollywood. But
what made it unusual was the care that had been taken to organise the narration
and the dramaric effects the narration would have. This was a far cry finm the
impromptu narration that K. Asif had subjected poor Saadat Hasan Manto to back
in the late 1940s for his film Phool; this was narration, modern Bollywood style, as
the industry got ready to move into the new millennium. What is more, it would
end with a film the Hke of which Bollywood had never seen before. The film
would also enable Bollywood to cross the final frontier, get noticed in Hollywood
and in the West which, for all its popularity elsewhere, it had never before reached.
Not many people who came to the narration that afternoon would have predicted
such an outcome. Aamir was a star actor but one of many in Bollywood then, and
by no means the most important, and the narrator was regarded as a failure.

The narrator that afternoon was a director called Ashutosh Gowarikar. His two
previous films, Pehla Nasha and Baazi, had fared badly and he had to work hard
to even get to this point. He had had the idea for the story for three years, but the
story of a group of villagers taking on the British in a game of cricket a hundred
years ago was considered preposterous, and even Aamir Khan had dismissed it
initially. Ashutosh had persisted, once turning up at four in the morning outside
Aamir’s house. Aamir had decided he would not act, but produce the film.

They were, of course, old friends, having grown up together, although their
careers had taken very different paths. They had often played tennis, one of
Aamir’s big sporting passions, at Bombay’s Khar Gymkhana, although Ashutosh
was not a good player so Aamir often refused to play with him, saying it would
spoil his game. If the tennis story suggests that young Aamir was something of
a fussy perfectionist, then there are other stories that indicate that he could also
be very stubborn. In 1970, when he was five years old, he spurned his chance
to appear in the film Pyar Ka Mausam, which starred Shashi Kapoor, because

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at the shoot he refused to sit in the car chosen by the studio for the shot. His
role involved being filmed in a particular car but, for the whole day, he insisted
on sitting in another car which was not part of the film but was the car of
his friend Reena, daughter of Raj Khosla, another film-maker. Eventually, his
brother, Faisal, went and sat in the studio car. Aamir was quite happy to lose
his moment of glory claiming, “I wanted to sit in Reena s car.” Another Reena
would became his first wife many years later and, to win her, he had to show
similar determination.

After fame touched him, his nearest and dearest would tell childhood stories
of his tenacity—such as when the Rubik’s cube arrived in Bombay and Aamir
kept attempting to solve the puzzle until he cracked it.

Perhaps it is not surprising that with a name hke Aamir, which means ‘the one
who leads,’ he displayed such a strong individualistic trait right from his childhood
and insisted on doing chores by himself, getting angry if his parents tried to help.
Although he could generally be quiet and reserved, certainly with his parents,
with his sibhngs he was often domineering and even bullied them to do his
bidding. And, while he was a voracious reader, and Hke many a young boy of his
background in India, this meant from an early age reading Enid Blyton and Nancy
Drew, spending all his pocket money of Rszo a month on books, formal education
bored him. This led to a momentous decision when he was seventeen, that he
would not carry on studying beyond Standard Xll but become a film director
and go to Pune to study at the Film Institute there. This, given his middle-class
background, where a degree is considered essential, was quite astounding but this
is where his tenacity and stubborn streak was to come in useful.

His horrified parents tried to dissuade him and, in the end, it was his mother,
Zeenat, who persauded her husband, Tahir, that if he was so determined, instead
of the Film Institute in Pune, he could continue to live at home in Bombay and
join her brother Nasir Hussain as an assistant. It also meant he could carry on
his studies and go to college.

The family had long been estabhshed in films. Tahir Hussain had been a
producer and, through the 1960s and 1970s, Nasir had produced memorable
trend-setting musicals like Tumsa Nahin Dekha, Yaadon Ki Baarat, and Hum Kisi
Se Kum Nahin. But, by the time he took Aamir on, the fortunes of the family
were on the decline and initially Aamir assisted his uncle in two mega-flops of
the 1980s: Zabardast and Manzil. However, he did learn about films; everything
from editing to music to scripting.

It was in 1983 that he, along with Ashutosh, got his first chance to act when
Ketan Mehta, looking for actors for what became a cult classic, Holi, held an
audition for a number of students. But, with the shooting taking place in Pune,
his father insisted he would only be able to shoot during vacation. He very
nearly got the lead part in the film but missed out because Ketan Mehta did not
hke his shaven head:

My film, Holi, was about one day in a college campus. I was looking for totally
new faces who had never acted in a film before. Both Aamir and Ashutosh Gowarikar
came across as very bright and enthusiastic, energetic, focused kids. And the choice
was between Aamir and Ashutosh for the lead. Unfortunately, Aamir landed up with
a shaven head, so we chose Ashutosh.

Aamir followed this with Raakh, a film directed by Aditya Bhattacharya,
where he also had to wait until the vacations before shooting his scenes.

Whether it was such acting assignments or the fact that Nasir was strugghng
and needed to do something different, it was at this stage that he was alerted
to his nephew’s talents as an actor. After three cosdy flops, Nasir needed to do
something and, in his search for a new face, he not only turned to his nephew
but tried to reinvent himself as a film-maker. This meant a new lead actress in
Juhi Chawla, music direction by the new duo, Anand-MiHnd, and Nasir even
vacating the directorial chair and giving it to his son, Mansoor Khan, although
he did write the screenplay.

The result was a success. Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, inspired by Romeo and
Juliet, was an unabashed love story that ends in the tragic death of the lovers but
which broke box-office records all over the country (the film would also make
another wannabe actor think, if Aamir could do it, so could he — that actor was
Shah Rukh Khan). And, just to make the story complete, during the making of
it, Aamir had his own real life love drama that almost matched Romeo and JuHet,
albeit with a much happier ending.

His romance with Reena Datta was what may be called a Bombay building
romance. Daughter of the Bombay manager of Air India, Reena lived nearby and
had been friends with Aamir and the other kids in his building, and Aamir had
long been attracted to her looks.T^hen he met her, he was taken by her strong
sense of humour, which neatly complemented his own. Once, Reena was busy
with a school experiment while eating something. When Aamir asked her what
she was eating, she said it was eclairs and enquired whether he would Hke some.
The moment Aamir said ‘yes’ and opened his palm, Reena placed a cockroach
in his hand. As Aamir was to recall years later, she gave him a cockroach, and he
gave her his heart.

But the couple faced a huge problem. Aamir was a MusHm and Reena a
Hindu and the couple knew their famiHes would object. Their courtship had
to be discreet and their marriage a secret, with Aamir waiting until he turned
twenty-one in 1986 to make Reena his wife. Nevertheless, for some time they
pretended they had not married and carried on living at home as if nothing had
happened. But Reena’s sister, Anju, worked out the secret and threatened to teU
her father when he returned from a visit to Calcutta, the ancestral home of the
Dattas. Aamir pleaded with his sister-in-law but when she proved adamant he
decided to make his own family aware that he was married. His parents took it

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well, with Tahir declaring dramatically, “We accept her as our daughter-in-law
from this moment itself.” It was agreed Reena would live with them and Tahir
said, “We’U get clothes, etcetera, made for her.”

There then followed days of high drama, Anju ringing her sister to return
home, friends of Reena’s father intervening and, then, father Datta returning
from Calcutta and, on hearing the news, falling so iU that he had to be rushed
to hospital. Aamir was persuaded by his parents to visit his father-in-law and this
seemed to do the trick. Soon father Datta was so reconciled to his Muslim son-
in-law that Farhat, Aamir’s youngest sister, ended up marrying Reena’s brother,
Rajiv.

If this indicates social tensions inherent in multi-religious, multi-cultural
societies like India, it also shows how far Bollywood had come from the 1940s
when Yusuf Khan had to change his name to Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand could
not marry Suraiya. Although, in the wider world, Hindu-Muslim tension was
rising (the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), espousing the Hinduatva philosophy, was
on the march and in Bombay Bal, Thackeray’s Shiv Sena was a stridently anti-
Muslim party). In Bollywood, Muslims taking to film were no longer having to
change names or hide their love for Hindus.

Aamir Khan’s success in Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak came at a crucial time for
Bollywood. The film was released in 1988, when it seemed Bollywood was
on its knees and would not recover, India had been late to allow television in,
much later than its neighbours like Pakistan. It had only arrived countrywide in
1982, when India held the Asian Games. Through the 1980s, Indians, certainly
urban Indians, took to this medium. The 1980s also brought videos to India
and this meant video piracy of films and, even at times, films that had not yet
been released in the cinemas. During the decade, the landscape of urban India
changed as homes started getting cable connections. But this was not cabling
done through digging tunnels underground but local distributors just flinging
the cables over buildings and from a basement in one of the buildings screening
videos. They had no compunction in showing pirated video copies of films for
their captive audience.

Senegal told me;

Hindi cinema went through a bad phase in the 1980s; video was coming, television
had taken away the middle-class audience, and there was not enough investment in
the infrastructure for the cinema. Theatres were awful. They were flea bags. Rat
infested, terrifying, nobody wanted to see a film. Projection was bad. At that time,
cinema had suddenly become a staple form of entertainment for the poorest people,
for people who were recent immigrants to the city. The lower half of the economic
pyramid was the cinema audience. There was no way to build an image. Image
building for the cinema became seriously possible when the top part of the pyramid
went back to the cinema again. It happened in the 1990s. Through globalisation,

freeing of economic control; all that went together. All that happened together.The
multiplexes are now further changing things. The average price of a ticket in a big
theatre in Bombay can vary between Rs 20 to 60, as opposed to twelve annas, the
lowest price in the 1950s.

To make matters worse, the Hindi film industry only seemed capable of
producing flops. And, in 1988, it lost its greatest ever showman; Raj Kapoor.
He could not have scripted a more dramatic or visual death for one of his own
movies. On the evening of May 2, 1988, he was at the Siri Fort Auditorium
in Delhi to receive the Dadasaheb Phalke Award from the President of India.
Sixteen years earlier, in 1972, he had collected the same award on behalf of his
dead father.Then, he was in his prime. He was to make another fourteen movies.
But, on this occasion, he seemed to be m a different world. He did not want
to go to Delhi and he kept asking friends to accompany him. The night before
he left Bombay, he had a long chat with his brother Shammi, to whom he had
not been close. During the conversation he unburdened himself of how he had
never forgotten the death of his two younger brothers. Bind! and Devi, and the
loneliness this caused, distancing him from Shammi.

In Delhi, at the Maurya Sheraton, his wife Krishna had to nag him to get
dressed; he insisted on wearing his trademark white suit, but required oxygen
for the ride from the hotel to Siri Fort. The May heat of Delhi can be terrible
and at one stage he came out of the auditorium to have more oxygen. Then,
when the time came to receive the award, he had an asthmatic attack. He got up,
lurched forward, then coUapsed. The event was being televised live and viewers,
who were unaware of his condition, would have been forgiven for thinking
he was playing the drunk. The President came off the stage towards him and,
somehow, Raj Kapoor stood up, supported by his wife and friends and the award
was draped round his neck. Pictures show him just about shaking hands with the
President but looking as if he is half-asleep. He clearly was in a desperate state
and collapsed again.The ceremony (it was the thirty-fifth National Film Festival
Award), came to a halt. Raj Kapoor was rushed to hospital where he went into
a coma and exactly one month later, on 2 June, died.

Nobody could replace Raj Kapoor but the 1980s did not even produce
moderate film-makers. The one exception was Subhas Ghai, whose flamboyant
style of film-making made some critics compare him with Raj Kapoor, and one
American professor found “deep mythic resonances” in one of his hits, Karz.
It is debatable whether he had the wider vision and the social concerns that
Mehboob Khan or Raj Kapoor displayed but, nevertheless, his films.such as
Vidhata, Hero, Karma and R.am Lakhan, as their titles show, proved that he knew
his Hindu mythology and could use symbols very skilfully and stylishly. Other
film-makers were not so successful. They tried various things to recover their
markets, including cramming films with as many as three or four ‘heroes’ but

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with the quality of films at an abysmal low, both technically and aesthetically, and
film music often a rehash of old classics, it did seem that India would follow the
rest of the world and cinema would take a back seat to television.

Major actors and actresses would be drawn into making all sorts of films,
none of which had any earthly chance of success. This was when my cousin
Ashok Ghosh, who had no background in cinema, took to making films and
produced 'Jal Mahal’, set in Rajasthan and featuring the two leading stars of the
day, Jiteendra and Rekha. Munir Vishram, who was Ashok Ghosh’s lawyer, and
often represented him in court cases involving his films, recalls:

It was a big budget film of its time. A top star cast, exotic locations, action
sequences and a terrible hotch-potch for a story. I remember Mid-Day published
a review of the film titled,‘What are the good points ofjal Mahal’ and went on to
conclude that there weren’t any. Ashok was so peeved at the article that he withdrew
the advertisement for the film that was to appear in the Mid-Day. The film tanked
and was pulled out from most picture houses at the end of the first week. It was
dragged out for several more in a single hall in Central Mumbai, so as to not to
make it lose its rural potential.

The 1980s was also to see major changes in BoUywood’s one-man industry
that also had a major impact on the wider industry. The decade was just a few
years old when Bachchan emphasised his very special status. In 1983 Bachchan
was filming in a movie called Coolie directed by Manmohan Desai. Coolie is the
first shout travelers make when a train gets into a station and porters rush on
to carry the luggage. From his office window near the Bombay Central railway
station Desai had often watched these workers, dressed in red shirrs and dhotis
and pyjamas, jump in and out of trains. He was struck by their dedication,
discipline—at the end of the day they sat together and pooled aU their money—
and decided to make a film about them. He also turned the central character
into a Muslim called Iqbal. Desai had grown up with Muslims and this was his
homage to Indian secularism, a film whose central character represented the
hundred million Muslims of the country. Amitabh played Iqbal and was shooting
near Bangalore.

The Bangalore shoot was necessary because, while Desai had constructed
the film on a railway platform, as he confessed to his biographer, “it would be
absolutely impossible” to film it in Bombay. “How to control the crowds? Then
we decided to go to Bangalore.” The local Government there provided facilities.
Desai found that “people down south are more cultured, refined” and, unlike
Bombay crowds, readily acquiesced to his requests. But then, on July 25, 1982,
shooting a fight scene, Amitabh took a blow in the solar plexus from his fellow
actor, Puneet Issar. The blow had caught him unawares, and it did not help that
he caught the edge of a sharp table as he landed and badly injured himself.

Iim nimi riuiiiiiii

He Staggered out to the lawn and lay down. The crew, not realising what had
happened, thought he was faking it to get a day of. But he was in acute pain
(the injury was to his abdomen), and although he walked to the car he was soon
rushed to hospital where he was put on morphine. When the doctor saw him
he had no doubts he must be operated on immediately if he was to survive. He
was flown back to Bombay, going in and out of consciousness, unable to speak
and communicating through notes on chits of paper and thirsting for water,
which was being denied him. At Bombay’s Santa Cruz airport,Yash Chopra had
organised an ambulance to come to the tarmac to take him to Breach Candy
Hospital. By this time this real life drama had united the nation in grief in a way
nothing else had done before.

Mrs Gandhi, Rajiv and Sonia all visited the hospital.Trevor Fishlock, then The
Times correspondent in India, described the real-life drama;

His struggle for life gripped the country. Crowds kept vigil outside the Bombay
hospital where he lay, pierced by tubes and fed by drips. Public prayer meetings
were called and people gathered in their thousands to plead for him. Advertising
hoardings were rented to carry messages urging the hero to survive. The Prime
Minister and her son visited the bedside. Hospital bulletins on his condition were
front-page news every day and newspapers and magazines carried large articles.

In the robust way of Indian publications they spared no detail and all India knew
the state of the star’s lungs, stomach, intestines, throat, liver, blood, faecal material
and much else. There was a happy ending to the story. The prayers were answered
and the people gave their thanks to their gods. Banners were hung in the streets
expressing gratitude. Advertising hoardings proclaimed with joy:

GOD IS GREAT
AMITABH LIVES

Desai made the most of the publicity and, while some accused him of cashing
in, he defended himself saying he was “satisfying the public.” However, when
the film resumed shooting—Amitabh insisted on restarting with the interrupted
fight scene—Desai changed the ending. He had originally planned for Iqbal, the
Coolie, to die, but now that in real life Amitabh had escaped death, in the film
he could not die, and he therefore was allowed to live. The film also reminded
the audience of the moment when the incident took place. The great victim of
the incident was Issar, who had inadvertently landed the punch. For a long time
he was blacklisted by the industry and it was years before he got back to work,
although Bachchan never blamed him,

A year after the film was released, there was another twist to Amitabh s career
he took to politics. In 1984, answering the call of his great friend Rajiv, who had
succeeded his murdered mother, Indira, as Prime Minister, he decided to contest

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elections. He won, beating a man who was then a major political figure, H.N.
Bahuguna, in his home town of Allahabad. But Bachchan was to find politics
very different to films. He was linked to the Bofors arms scandal, where bribes
were alleged to have been given when the Indian army bought Swedish guns.
Amitabh had no connection with the scandal but was dragged into the politics
of it and challenged V.P. Singh, Rajiv’s successor as Prime Minister, to prove the
allegations. He then launched a hbel case in London against India Abroad, when
it repeated the charges. The High Court jury found in his favour but, as it had
been deliberating its verdict, Amitabh heard Rajiv Gandhi had been assassinated
and flew back. Soon Amitabh gave up politics but the experience scarred him
and between 1990 and 1995, he had a five-year sabbatical from films, a decision
he has since bitterly regretted. When he returned he tried to bring a corporate
structure to the film business in an attempt to introduce something of the
Hollywood pattern into Bollywood but, with poor managers in charge, this
proved such a disaster that he accumulated huge debts and had to resume his
normal film-making. However, this was in the distant future. In the late 1980s,
with Bollywood’s greatest superstar licking his wounds, there was desperate need
for something new.

But if Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak answered that need for a time, halting the
descent of Hindi film into senseless violence, and making love stories fashionable
once again, it also created a problem for Aamir Khan. His success in Qayamat Se
Qayamat Tak had typecast him; film-makers refused to cast him in any other type of
part and, as often happens, he could not replace the astounding success of Qayamat
Se Qayamat Tak. Critics started referring to Aamir as a ‘one-hit wonder’.

In the past, actors faced with such a problem in Bollywood would have signed
up for as many films as possible in the hope that in numbers lay security and one
of them may be a hit. Aamir went the other way and decided to do one film at
a time. In the decade and a half that followed, Aamir acted in only twenty films
of which twelve were big successes—a success ratio of 60%. He had succeeded
in making audiences believe,that his films were something special and worth
waiting for, fostering a crucial sense of expectancy. It also meant that Aamir’s
films were not unnecessarily delayed on account of his having to juggle too
many conflicting filming schedules. But this, far from being appreciated, caused
problems, as did his penchant for perfection. In one film, the director was not
best pleased when Aamir said the dialogue written for him was not appropriate,
no Indian son, he told the director, would address his father in that fashion. Nor
was he popular with Mahesh Bhatt when he asked him to give up directing
Ghulam, since Bhatt was tied up with too many projects and had resorted to
directing over the phone. In Bollywood, with stars having multiple shooting
schedules every day, nobody took as much care as Aamir did, asking for retakes,
and while this made the end product better, it often made the producer, who was
watching the clock tick away and the costs rise, very angry.

Determined to break away from Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, he played the
spoiled brat with loads of attitude in Indra Kumar’s 1990 film, DU, which, despite
its crude humour and melodrama, enhanced his reputation, giving him a new
image and was an even bigger hit than Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak. By the time DU
Hai Ke Manta Nahin proved a success in 1991, Aamir was one of the bankable
stars of Bollywood.

By the end of the 1990s, Aamir had done a number of films, all of them that
bit different. So he had been an impish schoolboy in the 1992 Jo Jeeta IVohi
Sikandar, again directed by his cousin Mansoor, a no-nonsense uncle with three
orphaned nephews in the 1993 film. Hum Main Raahi Pyar Ke. This was followed
by a very Bollywood style, outrageous, over-the-top performance in the 1994
Andaz Apna Apna, and then came a single parent in the 1995 tear-jerker, Akele
Hum Akele Turn.

Rangeela, the same year, was a rare film based on Bollywood itself where
Jackie Shroff played the superstar, the relative newcomer, Urmila Matondkar, the
wannabe star, and Aamir Khan, the street-wise hoodlum or, what Bombay calls,
a tapori.What made the casting interesting was that in real life Shroff had been a
hoodlum before he became a big star. Shobhaa De has described how, when she
took her children down to the ice cream parlour on Napean Sea Road, a smart
area of Bombay—she would see Shroff, “clad in a pair of dirty jeans, with his
trademark gamcha (cloth) flung over his shoulder.’’There would be street fights,
with chains and knuckle-dusters, and passers-by were harassed and roughed up
and, if some of this was fun, there was a definite air of menace. “Jackie Shroff,”
writes Shobhaa De, “managed to stay on this side of the law,” and then through
a modelling break in a cigarette commercial made it big in BoUywood. Aamir,
the well-brought-up boy, now played the hoodlum in the film. Even greater
success came the following year in the 1996 film. Raja Hindustani, where Aamir
Khan played a taxi driver with whom the visiting daughter of a multi-millionaire
falls in love in a small mountain resort. Both Rangeela and Raja Hindustani were
among the top ten hits of the 1990s, although Raja Hindustani had greater box
ofllce success, earning over RS 60 crore (Rs 600 million).

In this period perhaps his most memorable performance had been in Deepa
Mehta’s 1999 film, 1947— Earth. Mehta was a controversial film-maker. Three years
earher she had made Fire, tackling lesbianism, the love between two unhappy,
lonely daughters-in-law of a Delhi family, played by Shabana Azmi and Nandita
Das. The film had provoked controversy; Thackeray had condemned it, saying
“Has lesbianism spread hke an epidemic that it should be portrayed as a guideline
to unhappy wives not to depend on their husbands?” His Shiv Sena thugs had
destroyed theatres which showed the film, forcing distributors to take it off the
screens. Now she tackled another taboo subject, the partition of India. Bapshi
Sidhwa, the Pakistani Parsi writer, had provided the story which was a love triangle
between a maid, Shanta, her masseur, Hasan, and the smooth-talking, thoroughly

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opportunistic, shady, suitor Dilnawaz, played by Aamir, In a cinema where heroes
never really wanted to play bad characters unless they had some redeeming
qualities, Aamir was happy to take on a role which had very little that was likeable,
producing a finely-honed performance. The role disturbed him, and he hated the
character, but rehshed the challenge of making him work on the screen.

By this time, Aamir was not only impressing cinema audiences but also those
who moulded the opinions of the Indian chattering classes. It was soon after
Rangela that Shobhaa De met Aamir Khan while both were at a charity do in
Bangalore, and the way he handled himself, without any of the airs of Bollywood
stars, won her over completely. During the show a woman rushed up to the stage
and accused him of ditching her girl-friend for his wife. Aamir calmly explained
that, while what she said was true, the relationship had not worked. Shobhaa
writes, “I thought it was brilliantly handled, without any awkwardness and with
enormous tact. 1 swore to myself I’d see every single film of his. I loved Rangeela
and now, after his Bangalore performance. I’d become the complete convert.”

Nevertheless, by the time Ashutosh Gowarikar, having moved from acting to
directing, had persuaded his old tennis partner to look at the Lagaan story. Aamir
Khan was by no means the biggest beast in the Bollywood jungle. Indeed, about
the time Gowarikar approached him, he was fairly low down in the pecking
order of the stars and not even the most important Khan in Bollywood. There
were at least two other Khans who were bigger names.There was Salman Khan
or, more properly, Abdul Rashid Salim Salman Khan, who had been born the
same year as Aamir and had begun to specialise in softly-spoken, romantic roles,
playing the comic-boy lover.

Even higher than these two Khans was Shah Rukh Khan, who was already
being called “King Khan” or “Bollywood’s Heart Throb.” Shahrukh (it means
“Face of the King”) Khan (he prefers “Shah Rukh Khan”) was being seen as
the successor to Amitabh Bachchan as the King of Bollywood with a string of
“blockbusters.”

Bachchan himself, after his political traumas, was making a comeback and,
this time, using television and his success as the presenter of Who Wants to be a
Millionaire, proving once again the versatility of this remarkable actor.

These were not the only male beasts prowling in the Bollywood jungle. Just
about the time Aamir Khan got involved in Lagaan, Hrithik Roshan emerged
who, some would claim, had made a quicker impact than Bachchan. It had taken
Bachchan five years to go from Saat Hindustani to Zanjeer before he became the
one-man movie industry. Roshan had made a huge splash in his 6rst film, albeit
directed by his father Rakesh Roshan, Kaho Na—Pyar Hai, which was released
in 2000. And then there were sons of actors like Sanjay Dutt, Anil Kapoor, and
Sunny Deol, a son from Dharmendra’s first wife.

In 2000, Zee Premier published a special issue called The Journey, a survey of
Bollywood since Sholay, marking the quarter of a century since its release. In it.

in an article entitled Men Power, the writer, Subhas K. Jha, after acknowledging
the continuing power of Bachchan, and the rise of other stars, mentioned Aamir
Khan almost in passing, saying, “Aamir Khan, the third of the trio, was never
in competition with Shah Rukh Khan and Salman...he was never as huge at
the box office as the other two Khan superstars.” And in an industry judged by
awards he had, at that stage, one Filmfare Award for Raja Hindustani.

But what he had was a niche, a steady following and he was different from
the other stars. And he was, of course, an old friend of Ashutosh Gowarikar and
therefore likely to listen to this idea.

It was against this background, on that August afternoon in 1999, with
monsoon clouds gathering outside, that Gowarikar began to narrate his story;
Lagaan—Once Upon aTime In India. As the invited guests arrived at Aamir’s house
they found the sitting-room transformed into a theatre, with a massive window-
ledge of Jaisalmer stone serving as the stage from which Ashutosh would narrate
the script. Facing the stage and lining the floor were huge mattresses covered
with white sheets, studded with ample bolsters.

Before the narration began, the sitting-room was a hive of activity with
Reena organising the sound system, food and various other things. There were
several other people present whose identity became clear as Ashutosh introduced
them. They included theatre actors like Raghuveer Yadav and Rajesh Vivek,
Kuibhushan Kharbanda, one of Benegal’s favourites and the man who had left
his scooter at Calcutta airport for three years, the art director’s assistants, Eknath
Kadam and Sanjay Panchal. Although Aamir Khan was putting in some money,
there was also a financier, Jhamu Sughand, present and, when the roU call of
people was made, he put his hand up.

The narration was solely the work of Ashutosh, who played every character as
if he was the sole performer on the stage.

The story he narrated was set in late nineteenth century India in the village
of Champaner. Captain Andrew Russell, the vicious commanding ofEcer of a
British cantonment in India, oppresses the people of the region with high taxes
(lagaan) while they are also suffering an unusually severe drought. The poor
villagers wait for the monsoon to come but the ground remains dry and infertile.
Fairly early on, Russell meets a villager called Bhuvan, played by Aamir Khan,
who is impudent, he interferes with Russell’s plans to shoot a bird, and in order
to punish him, but also to display his power as the ruler of these conquered
people, he offers the peasants a wager: he will cancel the taxes of the whole
province for three years if a viUage team can beat his men at cricket.The villagers
know nothing about the game and it seems a safe bet. Bhuvan takes on the
challenge and, helped by the officer’s good-hearted sister Elizabeth, the villagers
begin to learn this Enghsh game.

Elizabeth falls in love with Bhuvan, who is himself attached to a passionate local
girl, Gauri.The love story has many sub-plots. Gauri views Elizabeth as the “obstacle”

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predicted by the eccentric village soothsayer, Guran, until Bhuvan restores their
closeness. Then there is the woodcutter Lakha, jealous of Bhuvan’s relations with
Gauri, he desires her himself. In revenge, he betrays the team by revealing their plans
to Captain Russell. This brings in the idea of treachery prominent in Indian history,
and often cited as the reason why India fell so often to foreign conquerors.

When Elizabeth tells the villagers of the treachery, they threaten to kill Lakha,
but Bhuvan, finding Lakha hiding in the temple, gets him to confess. Lakha
proves his loyalty the next day by outstanding work on the field of play.

In common with much of Bollywood, there is also social concern. A character
called Kachra, which means dirt, and represents the village untouchable, plays a
central role in the film. Bhuvan s recruitment of him in the cricket team is resented
by other villagers who wiU not allow him near them, but they reluctantly agree,
and his contribution to the Indian success in the cricket match is crucial.

The centre-piece of the story is the match, which is both a game and a battle of
wits between the Indians and the Enghsh.The English bat first and make 323 runs.
The villagers, despite Bhuvans personal excellence, seem destined to lose. If the
British are shown in poor light during the film and the cricket match, the ending
shows that the Indians still beheve there is Enghsh fair play. With one ball left in
the match, Indians need a six to win. The ball is bowled, the six is not hit and the
Enghsh think they have won. But then the Enghsh umpire, to the fury of Captain
Russeh, caUs no baU; the bah is bowled again and Bhuvan hits this high and wide.
Captain Russeh catches the bah, but then finds out that he has stepped over the
boundary rope, giving the Indians a six and victory. And, as if on cue, the long-
overdue rains pour down in tremendous cascades, causing the vhlagers to rejoice.

Captain Russeh is sent away, the British flag is hauled down, the troops depart,
Elizabeth returns to England and spends the rest of her life as a spinster, mourning
the love she cannot have, while Bhuvan and Gauri marry. The narrator ends the
story with the words, “The name of Bhuvan vanishes from history.”

The final version of the movie had some differences from the story Ashutosh
narrated that afternoon but it was remarkable how during the four hours of
narration he moved from the impudence of Bhuvan to the coyness of Gauri to
the arrogance of Captain Russell.

By the end of the narration, the makeshift theatre echoed with cheers and
applause and even Satyajit Bhatkal, a lawyer friend of Aamir who had been
cajoled by Aamir to attend with his wife—it was their wedding anniversary—
found himself emotionally overwhelmed. He “felt he had been privileged to
preview an enormously ambitious artistic creation.” “The innocence and naivete
of the story and characters—qualities long missing in modern cinema and
modern life—captivated me,” he would later write.

Also, in a break with Bollywood tradition, Aamir announced that any of the
actors who did not like the script, or their role in the film, were free to opt out,
otherwise, the members were given draft agreements to sign.

Ashutosh had brought along an eight-foot model of Champaner, the village in
which Lagaan was set.The model, says Satyajit, took his breath away, “as even in
that size, it seemed real. One could believe that the village belonged to the year
1893 and that people lived in it.” Ashutosh explained to whom each house in the
village belonged, the direction in which the troops would march, and where the
various scenes would take place. Satyjayit could see the scenes unfolding.

At the end of the evening, Satyajit “intuitively knew that Lagaan was
something ambitious and that something important was about to happen, not
just at a creative level, but at a human level as well. An attempt was being made
to do things the way things should be done.” Two weeks later, the phone rang
and Satyajit was asked whether he would be interested in joining the production
of the film. Although he was a lawyer, and knew nothing about film-making,
this was an offer he could not refuse and about which he would never have any
regrets. It would later result in a book about the film. The Spirit of Lagaan—The
Extraordinary Story of the Creators of a Classic.

This would be one of two books written about Lagaan. The other was by an
Enghshman, Chris England, who, when Ashutosh was doing his narration, knew
nothing about Bollywood, and was himself busy playing club cricket in England.
His involvement in the film, along with other British actors and actresses, was
what set Lagaan apart from almost every other Bollywood movie that had gone
before, and helped Bollywood finally breach the Western frontier.

Had he so chosen, Aamir Khan could have worked with Western actors
who had made India their home for various reasons. One of them, Tom
Alter, the son of American missionaries, who has lived in India, speaks many
Indian languages and likes cricket, was devastated when he was not chosen.
But, from the beginning, Aamir wanted this to be different. If there were to
be Englishmen and women in the film, as there had to be, then they should
come from England. English actors had come before to work in Bollywood but
never in such an organised way, and they had always gone back complaining
about Bollywood’s flaky finances and not being paid. This time it would be
different.

It was shrewd of Aamir to have actors from England, as would become
evident during the making of the film. England’s book, Balham to Bollywood,
has a revealing insight into how the English who had stayed behind in India, as
opposed to newcomers, can behave. One of them was a man called George who
was being used as an extra in the film. On this particular day he was standing in
for Colonel Bowyer, Russell’s superior officer.

That day’s filming was to shoot the start of the match. Thousands of villagers
had been bused in to be spectators, 175 buses bringing them in from aU over
Kutch, with special arrangements made for their water. Everything, says England
“had been planned in minute detail so as to save as much faffing as possible.”
Except for George. As stand-in for the actor,John Row, who would play Colonel

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Bowyer, he was meant to make the start of the match by leading the two teams
out and tossing the coin for the match. In normal circumstances, an extra in
such a position would do just that, knowing he was not going to be in the real
film. But George, in his 50’s, was, says England, “although born and raised in
Bangalore, more British than any of us. He likes to refer to ‘the Empire’ as if it
still exists.”

He now started behaving like a major star. First, he wanted Aamir Khan to
tell him what was the spirit of his character so he could perfect his walk to the
wicket. He then raised a question about the tossing of the coin. If he tossed the
coin, who would pick up the coin from the floor? Surely, as the senior officer,
he could not do that and needed a ‘coin wallah’, a coin-carrier to do that. Then,
what was the year of the coin? Had they made sure it was 1893? Aamir patiently
explained that with the camera on top of the mountain it would not matter what
the year of the coin was. Colonel Bowyer had to shake hands with Russell and
Bhuvan but George objected, saying that since Bowyer was ‘an old imperialist’,
he would surely not shake hands with a native. England writes:

On and on he goes, raising ever more minutely detailed points, until you can
almost believe the film is a movie about Colonel Bowyer’s stand-in, a four-hour
epic, in which critics will marvel at the precision of the lead character’s stoop and
the intricate snobbery of his attitudes to coinage.

Aamir entrusted the search for genuine English actors to Uravashi, who worked
for a casting agency in London and, a few weeks after the narration in Aamir’s
sitting-room, she contacted a neighbour of hers in Camden Town, called Howard
Lee, an actor who also played cricket. Known to his friends as Johnny Player,
he rang his fellow-actors, who were also cricketers, and one sunny September
Monday morning a group of actors, carrying their cricket gear, turned up at
Paddington Recreation Ground to have an audition to be cricketers in Lagaan.
In Balham to Bollywood, England describes that moment, and many others, when
he and his fellow English actors and actresses encountered Bollywood for the
first time. England has a particularly hilarious scene where he describes going
to an Asian video shop near his home to pick up some videos and seeing a
Bollywood movie for the first time. Aamir Khan’s website had described him
as Bollywood’s naturalistic actor and, after seeing one of his films, En glan d
concluded, “if he was the naturalistic one, then the rest of Bollywood must be
populated with hams that would give Messrs Sinden and Callow a run for their
money.”

Lee, England, and others, would later meet Aamir Khan and Reena in a
London hotel where Aarmr explained that the shooting would be in Gujarat
which still had prohibition, a legacy of the fact that it is the home state of
Mahatma Gandhi. This would mean drinkers had to apply for permits. England

pretended to be very unhappy with the fact that in the film the English would
lose the cricket match, and mockingly threatened to quit, which so alarmed
Aamir that he promised a proper match between the English and Indian casts
during the filming which, as it happened, the English won.

The English actors and actresses Aamir had chosen were unknowns, including
the two lead ones, Paul Blackthorne, playing Captain Russell, and Rachel Shelley,
playing his sister Elizabeth. Blackthorne, also, was not much of a cricketer and
could not ride a horse but pretended he could and had to be hurriedly taught.
The net cast by Aamir’s recruiters was so wide that it also included a former
English banker, Noel Rands who, for a time in the 1980s, had been the head
of the Midland Bank in India, Although the script often took liberties with the
history of the period, this was not so with the cricket.

When it came to history, the village, Champaner, was portrayed as part of a
princely state ruled by a Hindu prince where the British stationed their troops
and dictated internal policy, such as taxation. In reality, princely India was
autonomous and did not normally have any British interference in their internal
affairs.This liberty with history allowed Ashutosh to show a scene where RusseU
displays British arrogance when he tells the Hindu prince that he wiU let his
people off the taxes if the prince eats beef sandwiches, beef being forbidden to
Hindus. One consequence of this was it made the Prince a nationalist, who is
portrayed as not liking the British when, in reality, Indian princes collaborated
with the Raj and were their allies.

But, when it came to cricket, Ashutosh and Aamir kept to history scrupulously.
So the two umpires for the match were both English—in 1893 an Englishman
would always have umpired in a match between the English and the Indians.
One of them was Noel Rands and he came away terribly impressed with the
way Aamir handled the whole filming:

I was five weeks in Bhuj, Gujarat filming the part of an umpire in Lagaan. Having
met the producer in London (Aamir Khan’s then wife Reena), and been measured
for the beard that was glued on after breakfast each morning, I didn’t meet Aamir
until I arrived on the set. He was extremely professional. Apart from supervising
the budding of an excellent set (it seemed almost a crime to demolish the village,
the temple, and the English cricket pavilion after filming had finished), he secured
the services of the lady who worked on the costumes for The Last Emperor and
recruited two Canadian make-up artists with experience of Hollywood. Every
morning he travelled in on the cast bus, queuing for his meals with the rest of the
cast. Always friendly, one was always aware that he was the ‘boss’. Perhaps, even more
impressive, after the earthquake a year later, which almost flattened the town, he
sent his accountant on the film to Bhuj to check if the local members of the cast
had survived and find out if they needed help. I’m not sure how many of the other
top stars would have bothered. We all Hked him.

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Aamir was not afraid to take advice from his English actors; Lee says
that originally Ashutosh’s script called for a two-innings cricket match, but
they intervened to convince Aamir and Ashutosh that this would be far too
complicated and it was converted into a one-innings match.

iMgaan, bringing together two such different cultures, inevitably highhghted the
differences. This is evident in the two books on the film. Bhatkal’s book is a serious,
earnest study of the making of the film, where he lays much stress on the spirit of
Lagaart which meant, he says, “The tremendous commitment and teamwork of the
unit members showed in each frame.” England’s book cleverly uses the fact that a
cricket match is central to the film to narrate his own cricketing experiences and, in
many ways, the climax of the book is not the film, but the real cricket match between
the Enghsh and Indian cast that followed. As England put it in his introduction:

I would dearly have loved to have been selected to represent England on an
overseas cricket tour.. .But then, out of the blue, I was selected to go to India to play
the part of‘Enghsh cricketer’ in a multimillion-rupee-budget Bollywood epic film
about cricket. I realised that this was as close as I was ever going to get to the dream,
and promptly invested in a Biro and an exercise book.

As that introduction suggests, England saw this as a light-hearted look at
film-making in India, in marked contrast to how Bhatkal saw it. Inevitably, the
meetings of the two cultures produced some clashes and not just on the cricket
field. At one stage, the English actors, worried that the promised RS 250 per diem
had turned into RS 150 per diem, the difference between three and two English
pounds, but with laundry charges deducted, talked of a strike. It came to nothing
but the Englishmen and women took some time adjusting to spending weeks
in Bhuj, a small town in India. To be fair, Bhuj would be somewhat alien to
most urban Indian members of the cast, let alone to the Englishmen. But it was
remarkable how well the cast gelled, with even some romance developing during
the filrmng between the English and Indian members of the cast.

If having the English there in such large numbers was a new experience
for the Indians, then Aamir also imposed other conditions which were quite
revolutionary—and he went back to a filming practice that had not been seen
since Mother India. In what Indians saw as his perfectionist style, he insisted that
all people involved in the film engage in no other project during the making, a
marked contrast to how BoUywood behaved. Incredibly for a film of this scale,
certainly in Bollywood, it was shot in one start to finish schedule, lasting only
six months.Twenty years earlier, Ramesh Sippy, like Aamir Khan, had built a set
in a remote village but his movie had been shot over two years. Lagaan was on
a different scale, testimony to Aamir’s meticulous planning.

But, perhaps, the most dramatic innovation was that, for the first time since Mother
India, sync sound was used. England describes how Amin, who played Bhaga, the

mute, in the film, told him how this would be a first for Bollywood and it made
England reflect on how dubbing has affected BoUywood acting in the past;

The norm out here is to post-sync aU the dialogue four or five months after
the filming, which explains the sphagetti Western look of so much of BoUywood’s
output.The Indian actors are finding that using synchronised sound enables them to
give slightly more subtle performances than they are usuaUy asked for, and they are
relishing the opportunity to try doing very little in front of the camera.

But sync sound also meant a big change in the way Indians behaved on sets.
Because the sound would be dubbed later, Bollywood sets had always been noisy,
even when the cameras were rolling, as compared to the silence that descends
at Shepperton or other studios when the director shouts “action.” For Lagaan,
Aamir had to organise someone to make sure the normally noisy, loquacious
Indians would shut up and this job fell mainly to Apporva, whose name means
wonderful. Known as Apu, his job as first assistant director, writes England, “was
to bully, chivvy and generally order people around, and Apu seems ideally suited
to the role. He is a powerfully-built chap, with a loud voice and a bit of a swagger
to him.” He was also a NRI (non-resident Indian), part of the Indian diaspora
who were increasingly becoming important to Bollywood.

The movie showed echoes of Bollywood classics of old. So, like Mughal-e
Azam, the movie began with a voice-over, the voice being that of Amitabh
Bachchan, as if to say this was someone speaking for India.

Aamir was also very shrewd in his choice of music directors and singers. His
music director was A.R. Rahman who, by this time, had not only taken over
from Naushad and the Burmans, as the pre-eirunent Bollywood musical director,
but was a very different kind of musical director. The fact that he hved in Madras,
where he had been born and where he had his studio, and had felt no need to
live in Bombay, as other musicians of the past had done, was in some ways an
indication of his status and his distinctive style.

But, then, everything about Rahman was different. His working methods were
different. He did not start working until nightfall, as if to match a life which was
a sort of Bollywood inversion. At birth, he was given a name similar to Dilip
Kumar; Dilip Kumar, and was a Hindu. But, then, in 1976, at the age of nine,
after the death of his father, his family fell on very hard times and being helped
through this difficult period by a “Sufi” (a Muslim saint), he converted to Islam
and became AUah Rakha Rahman.

What set him apart from other Bollywood musical directors was that, while he
was well-versed in Indian music, from an early age he had also studied western
music. At the age of eleven, he was already a skilled key-boardist and, as part of
the orchestra ofM.S.Vishwanathan and Ramesh Naidu, he went on world tours,
accompanying well-known musicians such as Zakir Hussain and Kunnakudi

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Vaidyanathan on world tours. He had also got a scholarship to Trinity College
at Oxford University and was awarded a degree in western classical music, rare
for an Indian musician.

By twenty-four, he had got his own studio, Panchathan Record Inn, attached to
his house, where he pioneered the art of composing Indian classical and Hindustam
music, using western instruments and setting a very individual style. He had started
earning money by composing music for advertisements and documentaries but,
in 1991, he composed the music for a Tamil Movie, Roja, which became a mega
hit and made him a household name in Tamil Nadu. It won him the Rajat Kamal
award for best music director at the Indian Film Awards, the first time ever a
debutant had won. By the time he composed for Lagaan, he was already part of the
musical crossover between India and the West, and working with Andrew Lloyd
Webber on the London musical Bombay Dreams.

Rahmans music was complemented by byjaved Akhtar’s lyrics and with Asha
Bhosle singing the female songs. Aamir, like everyone in Bollywood, knew how
important music was, something that the English actors found impossible to
comprehend. England provides a riveting scene when Aamir introduces England
and Lee to Rahman. The two had been urgently summoned to Sahajanand
Tower, where the entire cast was staying, to meet Rahman.

He seems like quite a shy, sensitive man, younger than Lloyd Webber and with
shoulder-length dark hair. Aamir, I notice, is being extremely deferential, and even a
httle star-stuck. After all, in a film industry where music is an integral part of almost
every film, Rahman is absolutely the most prestigious music man around and Aamir
is clearly delighted and grateful to have him on board, and is careful to treat him
with the utmost respect and courtesy.The atmosphere is so heavy with awe that as I
am presented to the great man I feel a strong urge to bow, as though he were royal.

In a way he is—Bollywood royalty.

However, England’s companion Lee, does not feel that way and he first asks
Rahman what he does and then, when told, he sings “Gobbledy-gobbledy-
gobbledy-gook” loudly.

England watches in horror:

Rahman’s face is a picture. A half-smile frozen in place, his eyes wide with horror,
he seems unable or unwilling to withdraw his hand for fear of provoking more
brutal criticism from this ebullient and overpowering Englishman.

Lee then repeats it and Aamir steps between him and Rahman while England
ushers Lee away with Lee snorting, “Huh! He doesn’t even recognise his own
tune.”

But what was gobbledygook to most English actors was wonderful music
to most Indians. Rahman and his music, along with Javed Akhtar and Asha
Bhosle, won many awards for Lagaan. By the time of Rahman’s success in
Lagaan, it was estimated that his annual income from worldwide endorsements
and royalties was in the region of US$4 million. It was a prelude to further
glory. He has since become so successful that he is one of the few Indian
composers to have a big following in the West, as well as the sub-continent. His
most recent Western musical was the Toronto/ Canada production of Lord of
the Rings in March 2006. He has attracted the attention of Hollywood, with his
music being used in films such as Nicolas Cage’s Lord of War (2005) and Spike
Lee’s Inside Man (2006). He has even composed music for a Mandarin Chinese
movie. Warriors of Heaven and Earth (Tian Di Ying Xiong,) in 2003. And he has
been awarded the Padma Shri by the Indian Government, the equivalent of a
British knighthood.

On June 10, 2001, Lagaan was released and in order to keep his promise to the
actors and villagers of Kotai (the village which was the model for Champaner),
the first public screening of the film was held in Bhuj (the district headquarters
of Kutch), and the film’s mam unit flew back to Bhuj.

Six months earlier, on January 26, 2001, a devastating earthquake had hit the
epicentre in Kutch and had claimed over 13,000 lives. The drive back to the
viUage for the screening was devastating, as masses of rubble, buildings being
blasted, and villagers stiU living in tents were the common scenes.The earthquake
had claimed many who had worked on the film. Sahajanand Tower had a single
broken sink, a pipe and a tap sticking up out of the ground. Paul Blackthorne,
who had flown in from England for the Indian premiere, was much taken by this
sight and some of the cast wondered if they were doing the right thing coming
back for a premiere in such circumstances.

But, at the Bhuj theatre, crowds started streaming in, not only from the town
but from Anjar, Gandhidham, and from the far-flung villages of Kotai, Dhrang
and Sumrasar. Aamir, Ashutosh, Paul Blackthorne and other Indian actors, who
had come from different parts of India, stood in the foyer for over three hours to
receive the people arriving. No one mentioned the earthquake.

Just before tbe screening, Aamir said, “We have shot in so many locations, but
we have never met people as wonderful as the people of Kutch. The film we shall
now see is not my film or Ashutosh’s film, it is OUR film.”

The theatre, with a capacity of 400, was now overflowing and, in the stalls,
there was no space to stand, much less sit. Aamir and his Bollywood team left
their VIP seats and went to the stalls and sat on the ground, while the villagers
with weathered faces sat in their seats. Then, as if nature and the gods blessed the
film, during the rain song, ghanan, the monsoon broke outside, always welcome
in this desert, and led to celebrations. This disrupted the power supply to Bhuj
and the screening continued with electricity from a generator.

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Soon after its release in India, it was clear it would be a success both at the
box office and with the critics. As we have seen, Sholay was one of the all-time
great commercial successes but hardly won an award. That was not the case
with Lagaan, which won eight Filmfare Awards and seven National Awards.
Its Filmfare Awards included Best Film, Best Story, Best Director for Ashutosh
Gowarikar, Best Actor for Aarrar Khan, Best Music for A.R.Rahman and Best
Playback Singer Male for Udit Narayan. Aamir Khan also won the Zee Cine
Award Best Actor and Ashutosh Gowarikar the Zee Cine Award Best Director
and also the Best Story. In addition, Gracy Singh won the Zee Cine Award for
Best Debut, JavedAkhtar the Zee Cine Award for Best Lyricist, Rahman the Zee
Cine Award for Best Music Director, and Asha Bhosle the Zee Cine Award for
Best Playback Female Singer.

As if to prove that iMgaan was no fluke, Aamir Khan followed his role in that
film as the nineteenth century villager who wore dhotis, with an urban young
man of the new rmUennium in DU Chanta Mai, which went on to win seven
Filmfare Awards, making 2001 a golden year for him.

But what would Lagaan do in the West? Could it finally break through the
barrier which had made Bollywood so popular in the rest of the world but not the
West? England and Lee and the other British actors watched it in Leicester Square
in the company of a jet-lagged Aamir, Ashutosh and Blackthorne, all of whom had
just flown into London. England was surprised to find that as the first song came
on, the mostly Asian audience got up and left for the loo, clearly something they
are used to doing, knowing how long the film will be—^it was three hours twenty
minutes long. By the end the audience seemed impressed and England, seeing it as
a sports film, was taken by Ashutosh s camera work and felt it was much superior to
Escape to Victory. Lee was taken with the epic sweep of the movie and both he and
England comphmented Aamir and Ashutosh at the party afterwards. But neither
man had any great expectations of how well the film would do or any sense it
would be a landmark film.Then, within days of its release, Lee was totally surprised
to find it had entered the top UK charts, despite being shown only on twenty-nine
screens, as opposed to the 300 to 400 of its competitors.

But there was more to come. It was nominated for the Oscars in the category
of Best Feature Film in a Non-English Language. So had Mother India but,
whereas Mehboob had to beg for money from Nehru to make the trip and not
shame India s name, Aamir Khan went in style and, although Lagaan did not win,
it had made its mark as Indian cinemas first truly crossover success.

Aamir Khan had fulfilled the dream that Mehboob Khan had dreamt all those
long years ago.

In the years since then he has pursued that dream with some diligence and
with both success and failure.

In November 2003, Aamir Khan even got the Prince of Wales involved to
make a sort of Bollywood debut. Aamir had decided that he would now tackle

a genuine historical event which he felt had great crossover potential, the Indian
Revolt of 1857: The Rising: Ballad of Mangal Pandey, with Aamir himself playing
the Indian sepoy, Mangal Pandey, who led the mutiny of the Indian troops of the
East India Company that escalated into a much wider revolt.

British newspapers delighted in presenting it as the Prince Charles debut in
Bollywood. The welcome that the Prince was given on the streets of Bombay
certainly suggested that he was seen as a Bollywood superstar, with the police
having to strain to keep him from being mobbed. Arti Bhargava, twenty-three,
one of the thousand-strong crowd who managed to grasp his hand, said: “I
wanted to welcome him to India and thank him for visiting us. He’s very
popular.”

Not that he was acting in the film. He was visiting India and all he had to do
was be present at the Muharat ceremony. The Prince held out a clapper board
in front of Aamir Khan. Like all such Muharat ceremonies, it was held not on
the set but in a hotel, the Regal Room of the Oberoi Towers in Bombay. As the
director, Ketan Mehta, shouted “Stand by everybody,” and then “Roll sound . ..
roll cameras . . . and clap.,” there was a brief pause, then the Prince took up his
cue and, amidst loud applause, snapped the clapperboard and delivered his one
line: “The Rising. Muhurat shot.Take one.”

Afterwards everybody made the right noises. “He did a good job,” said Toby
Stephens, the British actor who played a British officer in the film. Aamir
was equally polite, “The Prince knew about Mangal Pandey but asked a few
questions about him, maybe to test my knowledge,” he joked.

Unlike Lagaan, The Rising saw well-known British actors take part. Stephens
had been in a Bond movie and Kenneth Cranham was a National Theatre player.
Howard Lee also returned to India to take part in the film. By now he was
something of a veteran of Bollywood movies. Following Lagaan, he had taken
part in another Bollywood movie, but more of the old type. In Love, Love, Love,
made by Rajiv Rai and shot in Scotland, he played the butler in a Scottish castle
where the laird was now an Indian. “I did not have a script for this film but was
given my dialogue just before the scene was shot.” The Rising, however, was very
different and showed how Bollywood was developing since Lagaan:

The first time we went, none of us knew what to expect. While we had a bound
script for Lagaan, the whole thing was very different. For a start, the sets were much
noisier than what we were u.sed to working in. The Indians were only just getting
used to sync sound. And then there was the music, which was new to us.The acting
skills showed a much larger playing style then we were accustomed to. When 1
went back for The Rising, I was involved with well-known British actors, Toby
Stephens and Kenneth Cranham, who has been in the last series of The Romans.
Unlike Lagaan, which was shot in one place, this was shot in several. 1 was much
taken by my experiences in Pune where, as I arrived, a crowd started following me.

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I thought this was a joke by some in the cast who had put the crowd up to it for a
laugh but it seems they had recognised me from Lagaan and this made me realise the
power of Bollywood and how it can make you a star. While 1 was filming Lagaan, I
was also quite taken by the fact that 1 would follow my team, Leeds, on television,
showing how India was no longer isolated and part of worldwide television. I had
not realised this before 1 went to India.

The Rising was one of the most expensive movies made, costing ^6.^ million
including ^i$o,ooo of lottery funds.This provoked much controversy as the film
was criticised in Britain for allegedly distorting history and savaging British rule
in India. Bobby Bedi, the film’s producer, accepted that some of the scenes were
conjecture but he insisted the film was against the British East India Company,
not anti-Britain. He compared the British East India Company with Enron,
the disgraced American energy company, and said the film had to be seen in
the context of contemporary globalisation. “We live in a world where some
companies try to exert as much influence over the world as possible and the film
should be seen in that context.”

A spokesman for the Film Council explained it supported projects on the basis
of “quality, not politics.”

In India, there was no controversy about whether the film was historically
accurate or not. But Indians liked their history as costume drama, not as real
history, and the film proved an expensive failure.

Lee says, “I did not think there was much substance to British critics who said
the film distorted history. If you look back, we cannot be proud of what our
ancestors did in various parts of the world. We even started the concentration
camps when we fought the Boers. I suppose, what the failure of the film showed
was that Indians do not much like history; that is not much in demand there. As to
how filming was different in the three years since Lagaan, I felt there was a more
international approach, sync sound had bedded in, sets were quieter. Khetan Mehta
was a quiet man, a different kind of story-teUer, not so caught up with glamour.”

Two years later, having learnt his lesson from The Rising, Aamir Khan went
back to the formula that had worked so well with Lagaan and made Rang De
Basanti or, or as it was to be known to British and American cinema-goers, A
Generation Awakens. Made for just ^ 2 .$ million, he hoped it would succeed
where The Rising had failed.

In the film. Sue, a struggling British film-maker, chances upon her grandfather’s
diary and reads about his encounters with Indian radicals and revolutionaries
while serving the Raj. She travels to India, intrigued by the story of the
alternative Indian struggle for freedom, distinct from the non-violent Gandhian
one, featuring revolutionaries such as Chandrasekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh,
who was hanged by the British. With the help of an Indian friend, Sonia, played
by Soha Ali Khan, she finds actors, including Daljeet, also known as DJ, played

by Aamir Khan, to make a film about them. For the young Indians, learning of
what Singh and Azad did, is a new awakening and they realise they have lived
selfish pleasure, seeking lives ignoring India’s pressing problems.

As this new awareness dawns, tragedy strikes Sonia’s fiance, Ajay, played by
Madhavan, an Indian air-force pilot, is killed during routine practice when the
MiG, the Soviet supplied jets that are the staple planes of the Indian Air Force,
he is flying, crashes. It turns out Ajay chose to steer the plane away from a nearby
village instead of ejecting, sacrificing his Hfe to save the villagers. The Government
blame pilot error. But Sonia and her friends know Ajay was a seasoned pilot and
there have been many MiG crashes of late. They discover that the crash was due to
a corrupt defence minister, played by Mohan Agashe, who had signed a contract
for cheap, spurious MiG spare parts in return for a large kickback.

The group decide to protest peacefully. Police forcefully break up their protest.
The young men decide to emulate the exploits of their new heroes, Bhagat
Singh and Chandrasekhar Azad, fighting corruption just as Singh and Azad
fought the British and there is violence. Eventually (and somewhat improbably),
they end up shooting the defence minister. The film upset the air force top brass,
and the real life defence minister, Pranab Mukheijee, wanted the film censored.
This did not happen and probably stimulated interest in the film.

The film would provoke huge debate in India. What impressed Indians was
that the film did not go into the historical rights and wrongs which clearly bore
many Indians and avoided cliches so common to Bollywood. Subhas K. Jha,
much taken by “the delightfully unselfconscious Alice Patten,” felt that here at
last, “we have a film that never ceases to create a stir of echoic references and
counterpoints.” Before this many critics had said that Bollywood was producing
consumable heroes reflecting India becoming part of the multi-national world.
They were, they alleged, a world removed from the real traditional heroes of
Bollywood. Now, the discussion centred on what some Indians have caUed Great
Indian Post-Independence Depression.

Shyam Benegal told me:

This has been the most influential mainstream movie for some years. It has
had a huge influence on the students and I am certain that this has caused the
movements we have seen in cases like the Jessica Lai murder case [an agitation about
the killers of a Delhi woman having not been brought to justice], and also the anti¬
reservation agitation.The youths have been moved into action and this film has had
an enormous impact.

Peter Foster, who played a part in the film as a British officer, a scene that
was subsequently cut, and has spent the last two years reporting from the sub¬
continent for The Daily Telegraph, having also toured the country on a cricket
tour, told me:

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Ranq De is definitely a big thing over here. If you check out the blog sites and internet
bulletin boards—particularly with respect to the reservations issue—the younger
bloggers all talk about a Rang de...style protest.The newspapers also talk about the “Rang
de Basanti generation.” The film has been a massive commercial success (exact figure
disputed and hazy but about lom dollars /45 Crore rupees), taking more than any Hindi
movie for over a decade. It is definitely the ‘buzz’ thing at the moment. But it would
be wrong to overstate this. 1 do think that India’s rich youth are being sucked up by
a television and consumer US-imported culture at a very high speed. Even in the last
two years here you can visibly see things changing. Shops, restaurants, cable televison...
everything is expanding so fast and the companies are being clever at making things
affordable. Where these kids’ rich parents lived in that very Indian compartmentalised
space between rich and poor, 1 think the GenNext are looking outwards in a different
way, leaving the old ‘soul’ of India a long way behind. The JNU crowd—all those
lefties—sit and pontificate about the “Nehruvian legacy” but the kids know very well
that Nehru and Gandhi are dead, and that raw, rampant capitalism is here and here to
stay—whatever the Government tries to do with Employment Guarantee Schemes,
Other Backward Castes reservations etc. This is a global world—if kids can’t get seats
at Indian llMs and lITs they’ll just hop offshore—hence a lot of people predicting that
the latest reservations row will produce a reverse brain-drain. 1 think in some sense,
Rang De is a timely reaction against some of this—it’s the age old thing of young people
wanting something to fight for, to campaign for. Their forefathers (as did mine) had
wars to fight, ideologies to clash over...now the fight is over different things. In India it
is Governmental corruption (the theme of Rang De...) and the impact of a globalised
economy on society. In that sense Rang De (which 1 think is a pretty naff movie) tapped
into the Zeitgeist. However, all that said, the younger generation of India are not exactly
idealistic souls. They love everything Western consumerism has to offer—so in that
sense the Rang De phenomenon is a paradox. It actually says more about the extent that
consumerism is infiltrating society than the actual radicalisation of the youth—it’s easy,
cliched ‘armchair’ activism. The perfect foil for all those shopping-mall going, couch
potatoes. Marx couldn’t start a revolution here right now. He’d just be told to sod off
and go and get another ring-tone for his mobile.

The choice of the cast had all sorts of resonances. As is all too common in
Bollywood, Muslims played Hindu characters and Hindus played Muslims. So
Aamir played the Hindu Daljeet, while Kunal, son of Shashi and Jennifer Kapoor,
played a Muslim, Aslam. But, in some ways, the most interesting choice was of the
English actress, Alice Patten, to play Sue. The daughter of Chris Patten, the last
British governor of Hong Kong, Alice had last featured in the British media back
in 1997 when, with her eyes fiUed with tears, she boarded the ship that took her
and her family away from Hong Kong following the British handover to China. It
was a reflection of the despair many in Britain felt as this last vestige of the empire
was being surrendered.

Like Rachel Shelly in Lagaan, Ahce Patten was an unknown before she went
to India, having had a few small roles in television films and a handful of plays,
although one of them. Cigarettes & Chocolate, was directed by Anthony MingheUa
of The English Patient fame. Rang De Basanti was her first feature film. Patten
had worried about spending five months in a country she had never been to
before but her father had encouraged her to do the film, saying it would be a
life-affirming experience and make her more resilient and resourceful. Patten,
who had to take a quick course in Hindi—she learnt in two weeks to speak it
reasonably well—gave a performance which earned her rave reviews.

Rang De Basanti was released in seventy North American cinemas and forty
in the UK for the Bombay premiere of the film. Alice Patten, wearing ankle-
length green chiffon, was quite the centre of attention, having shared a screen
smooch with Aamir Khan, although the evening’s compeere appeared to forget
the leading lady’s name, addressing her as “you with the green eyes” throughout
an interview for fans outside.

Patten would later say she was never worried that making her movie debut
in Bollywood could make it difficult to get into mainstream films. The movie
industry was becoming increasingly global, one reason why many actors from
Asia were finding good roles in British and American films. She returned
to the LIK, from her five months in India, to play Ophelia in Hamlet on the
West End stage which showed her Indian experience had only enhanced her
profile. If she could emote using Hindi, she said she could do even better in an
English-language production. “Doing the Bollywood film was a step in the right
direction,” according to the twenty-six year old.

The film emphasised that just as India was now part of the world economy as
a valued, and at times a feared, partner, if not quite an equal one, with a growth
rate of near 10%, well higher than the average Western one of 2%, Bollywood
was no longer something strange immigrants watched in little- known suburban
movie houses in the West at ten or eleven on a week-end morning.

This was reinforced at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival when Provoked was
released starring Aishwarya Rai, a former beauty queen turned queen of
Bollywood. She had won the “Miss World” title in 1994—and in 2000 was voted
the most beautiful Miss World of aU time. Rai portrayed the Kiranjit Ahluwalia,
a battered British Sikh housewife from West London who killed her abusive
husband by pouring petrol over him and setting him alight. Her case was a
landmark one, instrumental in changing English law concerning women who
killed their husbands or boyfriends after suffering years of abuse.

The trigger point for Mrs Ahluwalia was reached on May 9, 1989, when her
husband, Deepak, attacked her with a hot iron but neither that, nor the ten years
of abuse she had previously suffered, were taken into account when she was
found guilty of pre-meditated murder and sentenced to life. It took a sustained
campaign by the Southall Black Sisters, a women’s rights group working in the

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field of domestic violence, to secure a fresh trial, when the charge was reduced
to manslaughter and Mrs Ahuwalia was released on grounds of diminished
responsibility because she had already served three years and four months. After
her case, the courts took a much more understanding view of women who had
killed their husbands or partners. The title Provoked referred to the English “law
on provocation,” which was softened, as a result of “Regina v Ahluwalia,” to take
account of the abuse many women suffer prior to the act of killing.

In the footsteps of iMgaan, the movie had the mix of Bolly'wood and
Hollywood stars with Mitanda Richardson playing a character who befriends
Mrs Ahluwalia in prison and Robbie Coltrane as the QC who takes up the legal
fight on her behalf. But it was Aishwarya Rai’s presence in the film which was
the talking point.

Aishwarya Rai herself asked the Los Angeles-based director, Jagmohan
Mundhra, to play the lead role in the film. “It was Aishwarya who asked to see
me,” said Mundhra, wl|o knew he would be accused by some of turning a serious
issue into “cheap entertainment.” “I related the storyline to her on March 8 last
year. She said she would clear her diary and we were on the set by May 6.”

It was an unusual movie for this actress, who for some time has been the leading
BoUywood actress. But then Aishwarya Rai (“Ash” to fans and the media) has
been unusual. Indian beauty queens trying to make it in the West is an old story
and a largely unsuccessful one.There have been several false dawns. Back in 1979,
much was made of Persis Khambatta, a former Indian Miss World making it in
Hollywood. That year she did get a part in Star Trek as lUia, a navigator from planet
Delta, although she had to shave her head. Now, then a new British magazine, even
put her on its cover but Now soon folded and Khambatta caused no waves.

Rai is different, reflecting both India’s new status as a country and BoUywood’s
new status in the West. Another in a long line of southern belles, she was born in
Mangalore, Karnataka, in November 1973, but has been one of the rare ones to
make an effortless move from beauty queen to professional model to film star. Her
range of films has been remarkable with over forty movies in Tamil, Bengali,Telegu
and Hindi. Her first mega hit, Devdas in 2002, with Shah Rukh Khan and Madhuri
Dixit, received a special screening at that year’s Cannes Film Festival.The following
year she sat on the Cannes Film Festival Jury, a rare honour for an Indian actress.
Kajra Re, the song she petformed in the film Bunty Aur Babl. was voted best song
of 2005 and best choreographed song in a poll in The Hindustan Times in 2003.

Even before Provoked, she had proved she was one of the few Indian stars
capable of making a transition to English language movies, starting in 2004 in
Bride and Prejudice.This just about broke even in the USA but overall it produced
an over 400% return on global revenue. And, while some of the movies that
followed have not done well, she demonstrated her international status by
appearing at the closing ceremony of the 2006 Commonwealth Games in
Melbourne to promote the 2010 games which will be held in Delhi.

Aishwarya’s international status can be judged by the fact that, although she
has so far received two Filmfare Best Actress Awards, she is the one Bollywood
actress the Western media can always call on, having been featured on CBS 60
minutes. She is also the only one in Filmfare’s list of Top Ten Actresses to have a
wax figure on display at Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum in London.

Yet, for all her success in making a name for herself in the West, and her
stormy relationship with Salman Khan and well-publicised relationships with the
othet Bollywood actors, such as Vivek Oberoi and Abhishek Bachchan, son of
Amitabh, she retains some of the traditional Indian ways. Still single, when not
filming she lives with her parents.

There was much speculation before Provoked was released in Cannes as to why
she would want to play a battered wife. One suggestion was that Aishwarya could
identify with the film’s theme because she had been slow to end her allegedly
difficult relationship with Salman Khan.

Salman Khan shows that, while BoUywood changes to reflect the new shiny
India, it also does not change. A few months Aamir Khan’s junior, Salman could
not be more different to the Bombay boy—Salman spent most of his childhood
in Indore in Madhya Pradesh before coming to Bombay—and remains the bad
boy everyone hates. A keen bodybuilder, he has always been eager to show off
his physique and is famous for removing his shirt at the slightest opportunity.
Having appeared in around seventy movies, he has an amazing fan foUowing but
even his official website caUs him “moody and unpredictable.” When he won
one of his two Filmfare awards. Best Supporting Actor, for a smaU part in Kuch
Kuch Hota Hai in 1998, he kept to his image by making an acceptance speech
which was hardly gracious. He had earlier won a Best Debut Award for Maine
Pyar Kiya in 1990.

While his fans claim he has “a heart the size of the universe” and is “very
sensitive,” to may others he is a bit of a thug who was rumoured to have flirted
with organised crime.

His life outside films seems to reinforce his image. In September 2002, he was
arrested on a drink-driving charge and vehicular homicide. He lost control of
his car and ran over some street sleepers; one was kiUed and three were injured.
It was said that he was mortified and made substantial payments to the dead
man’s family. The case is stiU to go to trial. In February 2006, he was sentenced
to one year in prison for shooting an endangered species, the Chinkara, but the
sentence was stayed by a higher court during appeal. However, on April 10, 2006,
he was handed a five-year jaU term for again hunting the endangered Chinkara
and spent three days in Jodhpur jail before being released on bail.

In many ways, he is an essential part of the special world of Bollywood.
Handsome, charismatic and immensely popular, despite his shortcomings away
from the screen, the powers-that-bc will continue to gloss over his “foibles” so
long as his fans love him and his films continue to make money.

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If Aamir Khan is the modern-day Raj Kapoor, although very different in
many ways, then Shah Rukh Khan, a Muslim born in New Delhi on November
2, 1965 and, like Aamir, married to a Hindu, Gauri Khan. Aamir is a combination
of Ashok Kumar and Dilip Kumar. He seems to lead what looks like a blameless
private life, living mostly in his palatial mansion in Bandra playing computer
games. In 2001, his son, Aryan Khan, appeared in a scene in the film Kabhi Kushi
Kabhie Gham playing a younger version of the character played by his father,
and collaborated with his father in the dubbing into Hindi of the US Animated
Movie, The Incredibles.

His arrival in Bollywood came a year after Aamir Khan had found fame with
Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak. It was after seeing the film that he thought he could
become an actor. Shah Rukh did not think he was quite as “good-looking
or as cool as they were, but somehow I felt I could do it.” Having been an
outstanding student {Sword of Honour and numerous scholastic awards), his first
job was running a fcfid restaurant in Delhi before he moved to Bombay in 1989,
where he started on a television serial, before moving to movies. Since then he
has never needed to look for roles and all of India raves about his extreme good
looks. His success is easily gauged by the fact that he has acted in more than sixty
movies and TV series, produced seven movies, received thirteen Filmfare Acting
Awards and a string of others. Two of his movies —Devdas in 2002 and Paheli in
2006—were India’s entries in the Hollywood Oscars. Much was expected of the
Sanjay Leela Bhansali directed Devdas, which had a star cast including Aishwarya
Rai and Madhuri Dixit and was then the most expensive film, costing close to
Rs 600 million. But it made little stir in Bollywood and, in any case, Shah Rukh
Khan, unlike Aamir Khan, professed no interest in Hollywood, despite being one
of the few Indian film stars to appear on the cover of The National Geographic
Magazine when it featured Bollywood in its February 2005 issue. Like Amitabh,
he likes to do his own stunts and can do “hero” or “villain” roles but like an
old-fashioned Bollywood actor, while he is the great and even convincing screen
lover, he will never kiss his leading lady on the lips. He prefers to rely instead on
the good chemistry he builds up with them. With one of them,Juhi Chawla, he
has been friends ever since they met on the set of Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman and
co-owns a production company, Dreamz Unlimited. Another of his production
companies. Red Chillies Entertainment, has produced or co-produced at least
three hits.

As opposed to Salman Khan, there is something admirable about his private
life. Loyal to friends, he is still closest to the three he met at school; a chain
smoker, his favourite drink is said to be Pepsi, although this may reflect his
appearance in their advertisements.

As a Bollywood hero, his only conceivable rival is Hrithik Rosan but then, he
has a father who can always make movies for him, indicating that Bollywood to
a great extent still remains a family business.

Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan, while representatives of
the new India, can be seen as part of the old Bollywood. They are not seen as
quite as awesome as the Big Three: Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand and Raj Kapoor,
but they share some characteristics.

Aamir Khan has proved to be a class apart. For a film like Rang De Basanti to
move not only Indian audiences, but to have crossover messages for the West, is a
new trend and shows the direction in which Bollywood is moving. In that sense,
Aamir Khan has gone where Mehboob Khan could not. Mehboob wanted to
be the Cecil DeMille of India, to make films that were not merely popular in
India but also in the West. His films reached millions round the world, but not
the West, and it has taken a namesake to breach the frontier of Bollywood, forty
years later.

Noel Rands, who acted in Lagaan, has no doubt about the achievements of
Aamir Khan and its wider effect on Bollywood:

I shall always remember the occasion when, during the shooting of Lagaan, we
had 20,000 extras one day on the set for the cricket match. Wherever you looked
there were people and lunch boxes. At one stage, with the crowds getting resdess,
Aamir just got on his horse and sang his song and they looked at him in awe. He is
by far the most professional of the Bollywood actors. Shah Rukh Khan is called the
King of Bollywood but his Devdas did not make the same stir abroad that Lagaan
did. Many people in Bollywood have tried to ride the success of Lagaan. Lagaan
was Bollywood’s Crouching Tiger, Midden Dragon. It gave a different dimension to
Bollywood internationally.

Afierworil

347

Afterword

The man sitting opposite me in a partitioned room at the far end of an office
ould have been an^ small-time, Bombay businessman. The office was certainly
unprepossessing: rickety wooden tables, cane-backed chairs, dust on the floor and
on the ceilings and, this being Saturday, nobody around. The tea the peon had
just placed before me in a little glass, sweet tea, made with condensed milk, was
the sort you get in cheap grade Bombay offices.

Except the bald man was anything but a nobody. He was used to being
courted by prime ministers. Atal Behari Vajpayee, who was then India’s Prime
Minister, had complimented his work. The New Zealand Prime Minister, Helen
Clarke, on a visit to India, had thanked him for showcasing her country and
helping to increase the number of tourists who went there. What is more, four
years previously, on January 21, 2000, as this man was about to get into his car to
go home, two armed hit men had shot at him from close range.

The man was grievously injured but somehow managed to drive to the Santa
Cruz police station to give the police a detailed description of his assailants.
It was only then that he was taken to hospital where he was operated on to
remove a bullet which had passed though his left arm and entered his chest.
Subsequently, the then Deputy Chief Minister, Chagan Bhujbal, told the
press that the police suspected the involvement of the Abu Salem faction of
the Dawood Ibrahim gang in the incident. Both are fearsome mafia figures of the
Bombay underworld, men the Bombay police would love to question. Dawood
fled India several years ago. In the last year, Abu Salem has been extradited
from Portugal after years of effort by the Indian authorities and is currently in
custody.

For a year, the police had provided protection to the man, beefing up security
at his Juhu residence and gun-toting policemen accompanying his son.

Yet, when I entered the office, there seemed little sign of any security and
when I asked the man about the incident he said, in a tone that brooked no
argument, “I don’t want to talk about the underworld.”

A few months after our meeting, the case finally came to court after four years
(by Indian standards that is quite good going), and the man was summoned by
the court to appear in the case. He made a written application for an in-camera
recording of his statement of evidence. He told the Sewri Sessions Court that he
had started receiving anonymous phone calls and threats to his hfe since it had
become known the case would be heard. The accused, he said, were aware of
the details of his visit to the court premises and moving around in pubHc places
had also become risky.

The Times of India, which reported this story under the headline of‘Mafia
Threats’ went on to say:

Recently, the media was agog with reports that leading film-makers,Yash Chopra
and Ram GopalVarma, were receiving threatening calls from the underworld for
overseas film rights. Intelligence sources had told The Times of India that the calls
were received from the breakaway Abu Salem faction, based in Dubai. The leader
of this group is referred to as ‘Major’. A senior police officer had said that police
protection was being given to both Chopra andVarma as a precautionary measure.

The man I had come to interview was, arguably, the most important film¬
maker of Bombay and the father of one of the most important stars. He was
Rakesh Roshan, some time actor, director, producer but now famous for what he
helped his son, Hrithik Roshan, achieve. It was under Rakesh Roshan’s direction
that Hirthik had notched up blockbusters like Karan Arjun, Kaho Na... Pyaar Hai
and Koi... MU Gaya, making him one of the hottest properties in Bollywood. It
also emphasised how important family was.

If the mafia and the underworld were not subjects Rakesh Roshan wanted
to talk about, family was a different matter. Being part of the film world was in
his blood:

I grew up in Bombay.We were quite well-to-do. My father was a music director. I
grew up in a film atmosphere and then joined him as an actor at the age of seventeen.

I studied at a boarding-school because I was naughty and my father wanted to
discipline me. I went to movies with firiends three times a week; my father found
out and then sent me to boarding-school, which was really a miUtary school. I hked
sports but not studies. I did my matriculation and got first division. I did one year
at college, studying commerce. I came back to Bombay and took a decision to help
support my family. I joined as an assistant director, My youngest brother was twelve
at the time. 1 was seventeen. 1 joined as an assistant director, making Rs 200 a month
and worked on various films.

This was Bollywood of the late 1960s when the Big Three still ruled and
Rakesh interacted with them and tried to learn acting:

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1 was new at the time and didn’t know what actors did. I had no acting experience;
1 learnt by just watching. I wanted to emulate Raj Kapoor more than Dilip Kumar.
1 liked Kapoor’s outgoing, happy-go- lucky, simple guy style. I didn’t get to know
him much. I was impressed with Dilip Kumar’s performances. Dilip Kumar was very
sincere towards his work. His shooting style was very leisurely; no script; timing was
everything. If he started in the morning he would take until 10:30 or ii am for one
shot and then stop for lunch. The films were narrated to the actors and their lines
would come the day of the filming. There was a bound script at that time but the
filming gave a lot of freedom to improvise. The theme of the film was the thing
and there were different themes. The producer would come with an offer which
would start with two or two and a half lakhs (Rs 200,000 to Rs 250,000).The actors
did not have a say over which actors and actresses would star m their movies. Even
today they may make suggestions but they do not have the final say.

The life of an actor ^lat Rakesh Roshan sketched out seemed very different
to the one his son enjoyed:

We would be shooting three to four films at a time and sometimes in two shifts
a day. Like seven in the morning until two on one film and then 2 pm to 10 pm.
It was hard work and we would go from studio to studio. Now you can’t do that,
just because of the traffic. You couldn’t run from studio to studio, unless you had a
helicopter. Actors are now just doing one or two films at a time.

So what made him give up acting for directorship?

some of the biggest political names are former actors and actresses who used
their screen images to build their political bases. Roshan s view is.

They have fan-clubs down there (in the south). It is not like that in Bombay. In
Bombay, if they help politicians they do it as a favour.They don’t get paid for it. Film
stars may campaign, but are not under pressure; they just do so as a friendly gesture.

Roshan did admit that “the artists are changing, times are changing, we are
following the West,” particularly when it comes to film financing.

As a result of a recent rule change, we can borrow money from banks, but you still
have to put up your own assets. Banks will not give you the money if you don’t have
collateral. They will only lend to established film-makers. For a film of 40 crores
(Rs 400 million), for me, 1 don’t require money because my films all make good
money. I have a relationship with banks, just in case, but I haven t really used it.

But while the financing model of Bollywood may foUow that of Hollywood,
Bollywood, or at least Roshan, wiU not be showing intimate love scenes;

1 haven’t shown any films with kissing and wiU not be doing it. It is inappropriate.
My films are for the family. 1 am not making controversial films because people
want entertainment, ^^hat kind of films do 1 make? 1 only make entertaining films.
The number of songs may decrease in value. We used to have seven to eight songs in
a film, but now it is coming down.

No-one would give me a break. I had a feeling that I did not fulfill my potential
and was not getting the support of the directors. Actors are just puppets in the
directors’ hands. So, I became a producer and produced four films. Because I joined
as an assistant director, I managed to take control of the set as an actor, and that is
how I kept learning. 1 established a banner—Filmcraft—in 1980, and produced four
films under my own banner and then in 1985 ,1 started directing. Money I had. For
my first film I hired a story-writer who had an idea. Rishi Kapoor was the star in
it. Eight lakhs (Rs 800,000) was paid to him then. At that time it was a very big
movie, but no one lost any money. I was now producing films and I stopped taking
assignments as an actor, and just went on producing and directing. I first directed my
son from 1998 to 1999 when I was thirty-five. He was disciplined and very good at
studies.

Bollywoods relationship with politics has always been complex and curious.
Some stars, like Sund Dutt, Shatrughan Sinha and Rajesh Khanna, did go into
politics but it isn’t like the Hollywood connection with the Democratic party
or the Republican connection with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yet, in south India,

So if he does not follow the West in making intimate movies with kissing he
does like going to the West to shoot his very Indian movies:

Lots of films are made in Scotland because of the locations, not because they
are cheaper. I shot in Bangkok—there is an island near Phuket—because it was
beautiful. It was at vast expense; there were no special concessions given to me.

1 have also shot a lot in New Zealand [hence the praise of Helen Clarke]. It is
like Hollywood—probably because of the coast. It is not economical. But there
are beautiful locations. Christchurch and Queenstown are beautiful. We get no
concession for shooting there; the locals don’t really help.The film that I am making
took 160 days (the longest time for any of my films) and was shot in Canada, in
Banff.The travel time takes up a lot of days.

The British Tourist Authority now keeps track of the number of places in which
BoUywood films are made; such diverse locations as Blenheim Palace, London
tourist spots, the Scottish Highlands, and the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent.
Karan Johar’s Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was shot largely in Scotland.Working abroad has

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Bollywood; A History

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351

affected the working conditions under which Roshan now makes his films. Gone
are the leisurely days when he saw Dilip Kumar working during the 1960s:

When working overseas you have to have very tight schedules. The script needs
to be very tight. A film length of two and a half hours or 30,000 feet of film is best,
though now we are making 60,000 to 70,000 feet. In terms of business there are
only one or two ‘territories’—Bollywood divides India into various geographical
territories—that do really well but what has changed is that ‘overseas’ has become
a recognised territory. We are at a very crucial stage now. The trends are changing.
Audiences are different. We have multiplex audiences and they are very different
to single theatre audiences. Everything has changed and all because of piracy. The
1980s almost killed Indian films. Now you have to release a film in 500 or 1,000
theatres. In the old days you controlled the release in order to wet the appetite. Now
you release to as many theatres as possible to beat DVD and video piracy.

The offices of Karan Johar, a short taxi drive away from Rakesh Roshan, could
not have been more different. It had taken months for the researcher who was
helping me in Bombay to arrange a meeting, and then a pretty litde girl, who was
Johar s publicist, accompanied me. The offices were in a suburb of Bombay, which
had developed long after I had left the city. In the Bombay of the 1950s, when
Raj Kapoor was making films, this was still a village. Now Johar’s office could
have been a modern advertising or marketing office anywhere in the world. The
publicist, on hearing that 1 was writing a history of Bollywood, had asked, “What
is your angle?” When I said it was just a narrative history, she looked vacant.

In terms of Bollywood names they don’t come much bigger than Karan Johar.
Son ofYash Johar, a noted film-maker of the 1960s and 1970s, he had first become
prominent as Shah Rukh Khan’s close friend in the movie Dilwale Dulhaniya Le
Jayenge, where he also was Assistant Director and responsible for co-writing the
screenplay and selecting Khan’s costumes, something he did in Shah Rukh Khan’s
other movies such as Dil To Pagal Hai, Duplicate, Mohabbatein, Main Hoon Na and
Veer-Zaara. In 1998, his directional debut, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, won eight Filmfare
awards including the Best Movie, Best Director and all awards for the Best Actors
in both lead and supporting roles. He was proclaimed a creative genius.

The young man sitting opposite me exuded the air of the new, confident,
shiny India, which was then being advertised as an achievement of the ruling BJP
Government and would soon form part of its unsuccessful re-election campaign.
I had looked round the office and wondered if it was unusual to have an office
like this. He had said, “No, it is quite common.” He was the modern Indian who
did not carry any of the old hang-ups.

I don’t try to cultivate any relationships. I talk to everyone who calls me, which is
why I am talking to you. I am good with my appointments.That is my temperament.

I don’t know—maybe that is unusual. My job with actors is 10% talent, 80% people
handling and 10% patience.

But if all this suggested something very new, Johar’s entry into films was the
old Indian story: family connections. His father,Yash, was already in films having
set up his own banner, Dharma Productions, back in 1976 when young Karan
was just four years old:

My father has been making films as long as I can remember. [We spoke before his
father died.] So, I have been exposed to the industry from a very young age, and exposed
to cinema. I think a normal upbringing back home wouldn’t have included so much
talk about cinema. But I think that was also a deterrent because my father’s view was that
I shouldn’t get into the fraternity of film-making because I was not made of the stuff
that the industry requires. He discouraged me but things worked out.

When Johar was growing up he often refused to say he came from a film
family, or to even acknowledge he was his father’s son:

I lied to everyone that my father was making films. When my father’s name
would come up, I would lie and say that ‘that is another Johar, 1 would say he was a
businessman.

So, coming from a such a strong film background, did he not always want to
be in films?

No, 1 wanted to be but always held back. I did not think I was capable of directing.
Producing was an option because my father is a producer but I found it boring. I
finally met Yash Chopra’s son—he was a childhood friend. We met in college, in
Bombay, in HR College, and we studied commerce.

But what about the other pull on Johar, the all too common pull on middle
and upper middle-class Indians for children to study and get a good degree?

My mother comes from a very educated background, as does my father. My
mother wanted me to do an MBA. My mother was very keen that I educate myself
and work as a professional. She had no problem with the film profession, but she
did not think I was ready for it or cut out for it, in terms of my temperament. My
father thought that as well—in terms of being too tirmd and too weak. At that
point, I didn’t really know what I was doing. After I did my B Com (Bachelor of
Commerce) I realised I did not want to educate myself further, and decided that
films were for me.

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Bollywood; A History

So, how did he become a director?

As I was saying,Yash Chopra’s son was the director and he came to me with the
narrative, F sat with him at the writing stages. After that, he approached me to be
an AV on the film, as 1 was involved with the writing process, I met Shah Rukh
K-han for the first time professionally. We struck up a rapport and a friendship with
Kajol who was the actress in Dilwate Dulhaniya LeJayenge [a 1995 film starring Shah
Rukh Khan], One thing led to another and, when I made my first film, the obvious
choice was to approach thern.Thcy readily agreed as we were friends, more so than
anything else, and eventually I made my first film, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.

For his first film he took a year and a half to write his script, and a year to
shoot it. So did Johar break the established Bollywood tradition of not having a
script but making up the dialogue as things went along?

Now scripts are written with screenwriter’s software, it was a pre-planned
production product, which was unusual. But, because I come from an educated
background, I was aware...

Not that Johar showed his script to either Shah Rukh Khan or Kajol or any
of the other actors or actresses in the film.

At the time they were still used to what we call narration. 1 had the full bound
edition, but I narrated it to them because I believed I would express myself better
w'hen I spoke. It was at Shah Rukh Khan’s old house. I just spoke. I read it in detail.

It took me about three and a half hours It was 8 pm in the evening, if I remember
and it was the 29“'’ of April, 1997. The air-conditioner was on. I was thirty kilos
lighter then. No, I was not nervous.

As far as Johar was concerned, this was like talking to friends, except one
friend was not helpful.

Kajol is quite annoying; she cackles and she screams and, it she doesn’t like
something, she starts fighting with you.

As Johar narrated, he thought of the man he considers his guru and how he
would narrate;

1 had heard how Sooraj Baijatya gave a detailed narration—he pioneered Rajshri
Productions, which made Hum Aapke Haiti Kaun, which was a super success in
1994. [It was one of the most successful, beating Shotay's long-held record]. He

was my Guru at the time. He apparently narrated his film to every lead artist, every
character artist, every cameo in the film, even the colour of the curtains. I heard in
detail how he had done it. At the time I looked up to him and emulated his style.

The title ofjohar’s first film started with K which is also the first letter of his
name. It proved significant:

1 struck astrological gold with Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. I didn’t know' it then. But
all the astrologers I have since met have alw'ays said K is lucky for you. Even in
London 1 went to a mall, and an astrologer came up to me and said you have a very
interesting face and you will do really well in life and by the way stick to the letter
K. I attract psychics. In London, the astrologer just came up to me; she had no idea
who I was. In Malaysia, someone came up to me and said let me read your hand. In
Bombay, 1 went to a tarot card reader, and she said K is important for me. So all my
films start with the letter K. I follow numerology, too. I am quite superstitious about
that. No other superstitions,just numerology and astrology.

But no astrologer predicted that, as he was making his first film, he would faint:

I was in Filmistan.Yes, I was weak; I hadn’t eaten in two days. I was quite stressed.
The shooting was in the studio. Everyone knew everything. I was just nervous. I fell
on top of my choreographer, poor thing. She obviously reacted because she thought
she would nearly die with my body weight on her. Fortunately, I was not .so heavy.
The stars who were there all laughed. It was quite entertaining. I quite enjoyed it
because after that I directed from the make-up room.They gave me a monitor and
they gave me a wireless. 1 quite enjoyed it; really fun to lie down on a bed and tell
people what to do.

Johar had grown up admiring the directors who have gone before but is not
a fan of either Satyajit Ray or Sholay.

Shammi Kapoor was especially impressionable. Most of the films that inspired me
were his. 1 never liked Sholay. Mother India was good. 1 really liked all Raj Kapoor’s
films. Western films—there were few at that time. My first experience of a Western
film was Roman Holiday —my mother took me when it came to Bombay, and 1 went
back the next day to see it again. Everyone watched cartoons. Satyajit Ray? Not
really, I was always more of a Guru Dutt fan.

The older generation of film-makers lived through the horrors of partition.
Johar, born long after, was unconcerned about the relationship between Hindus
and Muslims, despite the political tensions in the wider world. For him the
problem just does not exist.

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Afterword

355

In all of our films over the past ten years, the big stars have been born in the last
twenty to thirty, so the Muslim/Hindi issue in films is not as bad. Partition was a
different time.

Johar was, perhaps, most revealing when he spoke about why Bollywood
film-makers do not want to make films about their great Indian leaders, leaving
Attenborough to make a film on Gandhi, or indeed why historical films just do
not work;

Because they become educational. No one is interested in documentaries,
everyone wants entertainment, no one wants to lose money.

And it was then that Johar, the nationalist, the Indian through and through,
emerged:

I want to make the films I believe in, and make good films here, and not crossover
Hindi/English films. I want to stay in India. There are lots of opportunities here.
Even if you call Hollywood heaven, I would rather serve in an Indian hell than a
Hollywood Heaven.

In the Bombay in which I grew up, there were no auto rickshaws. In other
Indian cities they are the main means of transport, but they were banned in south
Bombay. I can remember Bombay trams, but they had gone by the early 1950s
and, in south Bombay, neither cycle rickshaw nor autos were allowed. Now, on
my way to see the granddaughter of Raj Kapoor, Kareena, who was shooting
in a studio in what I still felt was jungle country on the outskirts of Bombay,
I hailed my first ever auto rickshaw in Bombay. As it chugged along roads that
in my childhood were paddy fields, 1 marvelled at the change in the landscape.
I had not been here for almost forty years and gone were the fields, the pigs
and hens I had seen roaming round, the huts and dirt tracks. Instead, there were
now concrete buildings, paved roads, slums and the ubiquitous television aerials
atop every building, even on the little tarpaulin covered shacks. Much of it was
hideous but it was progress of a kind, development, but unplanned, as if a child
had been let loose with a paint box.

When I got to the studio, I was told Kareena was busy so I waited outside
her trailer.

Kareena was supposed to see me at 3 pm. 3 pm came and went, then 4 pm.
Then a minion came and asked if I would like to sit in her make-up van parked
outside the set where the shooting was taking place.

In the make-up van, I found myself in a L-shaped sitting area with a divan and
three or four cushions where one could sleep. The first thing that struck me was
it was air-conditioned relief from the oppressive afternoon heat. The make-up van

had strip fighting, a dressing table with a box of red tissue—Jackson Murarthy
tissue—a squareish mirror with a wooden frame and an arch at the top and plenty
of fight. In a corner stood a television set, and on a small table were piled lots of
things: food, shoes, paper bags, kit bag, a mobile phone, but no books. I tried not
to imagine what it would be like to be cooped up here for days on end.

The make-up van had white curtains. I parted them and could see people
outside sitting on the ground. Some were eating, having brought tiffin carriers
packed with food. They sat on the concrete floor and just scooped up the food
with their hands and ate. There was also a concrete basketball court and it was
here that I saw some European women sitting on a mat. They had emerged as if
from nowhere and, intrigued by their presence, I came out of the make-up van
to find out who they were.

The women were all white, none of them it seemed more than about twenty
or twenty-five, and few of them appeared to be speaking English. Then, in the
background, I noticed an older woman who was much darker, possibly Middle
Eastern, who seemed to be someone in authority. She turned out to be a lady
called Shanaz Aseedian. She was from Tehran and had come to India to study,
had married an Indian and stayed. Now she was an agent whose job it was to get
female extras for Bollywood films, “Girls come for a few months and then go”
said Shanaz. She spots girls at all sorts of places. She spotted a girl called Agnes
dancing at a wedding. She thought she was a good dancer and so approached her
and now she was in a Bollywood film.

She was Agnes Johnson, a London girl on tour in India who had been
approached by Shanaz on a Bombay street. She was staying in Colaba and had
come to India for a wedding. She had done some acting at Shepperton Studios
in London and had studied psychology in London at University College.

She didn’t know much about BoUywood but she was familiar with the singing
and dancing stereotype of BoUywood movies. When I spoke to her she did not
know the title of the movie in which she was acting, nor the story fine and gave
the impression that she did not care. She was to be a dancer in the film, and
perhaps act a bit. She was in it for the experience, rather than the money. She
planned to stay for a month and then continue travelling. She did mention that
her shoes were too smaU.

She then gave me a potted summary of her companions on the mat. There
were about eight or nine girls, aU from Europe. She was the only English
girl; there was a Brazilian, a Russian, a Romanian and various other assorted
nationalities whose origins she did not know and did not care.

As we spoke there was a shout and Agnes and the girls all got up and walked
onto the set.

An hour later, Kareena Kapoor, the actress many in BoUywood consider the
most beautiful of the Kapoors, finaUy emerged. People rave about her almond-
shaped, fight brown eyes, with a touch of green, and a voluptuous figure so

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Afterword

357

similar to the heroines Raj Kapoor liked. What struck me as she sat in front of
me was her serene face: a young girl of twenty-three with, at that time, no love
interest and living at home. But a Kapoor.

Was it inevitable she would end up in acting?

I did not know anything else. Initially, I wanted to be a lawyer. 1 studied law in
Harvard in America, but ran away after six months. 1 always knew 1 wanted to act.

I loved my last two years of high school (a girls’ school in India) because 1 wasn’t
treated differently, I could be individualistic. My greatest satisfaction is acting. I have
wanted to be an actress since 1 was a child. When I was about nine or ten I used to
pick up the phone and say,‘I will be a movie star.’

Kareena was hoping to fulfil her grandfather’s expectations but he died when
she was eight. Always living with her mother and sister Karisma (her father
Randhir, Raj Kapoor’s eldest son separated from his wife many years ago and
Kareena did not have much male influence in her life), her mother brought her
and her sister up as individual people. Her father, she said, is very laid back, always
looking for scripts but hasn’t made a film for a while. She felt that he needed
to make one soon. For a brief moment she spoke of the other Kapoors. Shashi
Kapoor had retired and was putting on lots of weight. His son Karan was married
in London and other son, Kunal, was producing and making commercials, not
‘real’ films.

The movie she was filming that day (Fida), had come about because a video
director—Ken Ghosh—had made a previous film which was a big hit. He came
to her with the script, which she liked very much as it seemed like a challenge.
The film, she told me, was about a chap who goes mad. The movie was 6o%
complete. Kareena is the love interest who makes him worse. The film is mostly
set in Bombay but there was some filming to be done in New Zealand.

Why, I wondered, unlike in her grandfather’s days, was there no great leading
lady like a Nargis or a Madhubala? There was no one to match the leading male
actors, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Hrithik Roshan, as Nargis had matched
her grandfather?

It is a male-dominated industry and so male actors have more prominenceiTo be
a leading actress, beauty alone is not enough for an artist,To be a legend, one needs
to be a power-packed performer, one has to have a lot of naturalness and to have
ethereal beauty as well.There has to be a lot of masala—a lot of mix. Most people
are lacking in something; they have one or another but not everything.

Kareena is an old-fashioned actress m the sense that she works on more than
one film at a time. When I spoke to her she was working on six films at the same
time. The next day she was leaving for Chennai, for another five days shooting.

Every working day was twenty to twenty-three hours, sometimes with no sleep
at all. She does not find it difficult to keep all the plots and scripts in her head as
she changes from movie to movie, “You have to have good memory.”

In a Bollywood world where an actress tends to work for a particular director,
Kareena is very proud that she works with all the directors of Bollywood. So, she
has worked with Karan Johar in Kabhi Kuslii Kahliie Gham, with Subhas Ghai in
Yaadein, and with the Barjatays in Mein Prem Ki Diwani Haan.

Then there was a knock on the door and she was required on the set again.
As she went, I noticed Agnes Johnson looking at her, a look that suggested .she
thought she was a creature from another world.

During the course of researching this book, I met Shyam Benegal several
times, always at his offices, Everest Building inTardeo.The building is the sort of
higgledy-piggeldy office building all too common in the Bombay I knew. Like
Topsy, it had just grown up, housing a mixture of shops and offices and, on the
pavements outside, several stalls selling all sorts of things from newspapers to pans,
betel nuts wrapped in a leaf Indians love to chew. The taxi-drivers who took me
there never seemed to know the place, and I had to direct them, following the
careful instructions Benegal had given. Like all such Bombay offices, parts of it
were in need of urgent repair, parts that looked like a permanent building site.

Benegal’s office was the last one in a corridor which also housed a bank and
stairs that had clearly seen their best days. The office itself was a long room with
several tables where assistants sat. Scattered around were posters of his films. At the
end was his partitioned office lined with books.This, instantly, made it different to
any ocher Bollywood film office 1 had visited. Until now I had not seen a single
book in these film offices. Benegal’s office was like the study of a professor.

I have, in the course of my writing career, interviewed many great men of
India. All of them, without exception, exuded an air of impatience, an air of
contempt that they had to be subjected to an interview by a journalist, almost
as if they were upper caste Brahmins and 1 . the untouchable. Benegal could not
have been more different. For a man who is a Bollywood legend, he was totally
unpretentious. I did not have to go through a publicist to arrange the interview,
he had answered his own phone and did not even have any of the airs that minor
Indian celebrities can display. Not for him a peon outside his office who would
have demanded my business card, or even a secretary who would have told me
to wait before he could say whether saab would see me.

The first time I met Benegal he had just finished his Bose film and it was not
surprising that he knew a lot a'oout Subhas Bose. But what impressed me was his
detailed knowledge of Bose, including recent material based on secret files that
had just been unclassified. I had just reissued my own biography of Bose; he had
not only read my original book but it was marvellous to find someone m India
who dealt with this controversial figure not in myths, but in historical facts. What
was even more uplifting in that interview, and many others that followed, was his

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359

easy command of the history of Bollywood. In a country which prefers fiction to
history, and where narrative history is the province of foreigners, he was almost
a walking encyclopaedia of Indian cinematic history.

His films, as we have seen, have always been different. Observe a Raj Kapoor
film and its street scenes show no dirt when, in reality, it is impossible to walk an
Indian street without coming across dirt; filthy, horrible dirt. This may enhance
the make-believe but it makes the streets unrecognisable.When I mentioned this
to Senegal he said in his quiet, almost professorial, tone:

Yes, the streets are very clean. Even in Shri 420. I would not make a film like that.
That was one of the reasons I came into films. My films were a rebellion against
that. But that was the set in the studios. Now they make the sets look like Bombay.

I make my films outdoors.

It would have been easy for Benegal to have chips on his shoulders like banyan
trees. He is not mainstream Bollywood; he has always struggled to find money
for his films; the Bose film cost 25 crores (Rs 250 million) and he has had to fight
both conventional financiers and the Government. But he carries no grudges.
Yes, he told me, for all the changes made, and the fact that banks can now finance
films, the central concept of the financing of the industry was absurd:

You pay an entertainment tax to the local governments. In Maharashtra, it is 55%.
Not as high as Uttar Pradesh. There it is 132% of the price of the ticket. That is
absurd. How can you make money in UP? Nobody minds the taxes if something
comes back to the industry. It goes to the government common fund. The tax
system gives the industry enormous problems. The man who has taken the least
amount of risk is the person who gets the money first, the government, who have
done nothing to earn it. After that the exhibitor.

But, as a film-maker, he is grateful that for all their distrust of the cinema which
this taxation policy shows, it was beneficial that Indian politicians had taken so
long to allow television into the country. India was one the last countries to
enter the television age with the result that the impact of television on India is
the reverse of most other countries:

Had the authorities allowed television in earlier, Hindi cinema may not have had
such a big impact on the Indian audience. Television has magnified the importance
of cinema for Indian audiences. It has not broken away from it. Indian television has
ridden piggyback on Indian cinema.

Mass television has arrived just as there has been a big change in Indian
newspapers, which has also affected Bollywood:

The idea that people read newspapers to entertain themselves is an idea that has
come into India only in the mid-1990s.Today you will have film stars’ photographs
on the front pages of the national newspapers. You are never Ukely to see that sort of
thing in JTte New York Times.

But, perhaps the biggest change affecting Bollywood is due to India’s
relationship with the United States, and the profound affect this has on the
cinema industry:

A film may show Indian families living 111 huge magnificent mansions. The
mansions are not in India. The story is about India. The mansions could be in
Scotland or some other place. But the film is meant to portray India. These films
appeal to a certain aspirational quality in Indian audiences. Today’s aspiration is be
in the United States.There is the famous saying that everywhere in the world today,
particularly the world outside the United States, everybody has two countries, one
is their own and the other is the United States. All want to be like that, or to be
there. Pronob Roy [one of India’s most famous television presenters] said the other
day the great Indian ambition is to say “America keep out, but take us with you.”

Yet, as we have seen, the Indian film world was much affected by film-makers
who are very left-wing, if not Communist. Bachchan’s first break m films came
through Abbas, a Communist. What happened to that ideological basis which
was for so long such an important part of Indian film-making?

Intellectually, America is doing everything that wiU benefit itself and nobody
else. This is a common view in India but it is not necessarily a leftist vision. Large
sections of the population are similarly wary of America. They feel America wants
to dominate the whole world; to take over the whole world. The feeling is are they
really interested in you and me? This is not just the view of the jawaharlal Nehru
University [considered India’s intellectual heart and traditionally very left wing and
anti-American].JNU is no longer homogenous. It is changing and you have several
points of view. There is also a lot of internal debate in JNU. But the views that are
being formed have to be reconciled with the old ideological mores. It is not that
easy to let go of the past, at least not let go entirely.

In the Bombay of my childhood every evening, at seven, the city came to
a halt as everyone wanted to know the “Matka” numbers. This was Bombay s
home-grown lottery run by the underworld. There was talk of underworld
connections with some of them—Muslims, with Middle Eastern connections,
although Benegal told me, “The matka was Hindu, not Muslim.”

But now Matka has gone and the underworld is much more ferocious and
into Bollywood, and much of it is Muslim, with people like Dawood and Abu

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361

Salem prominent. One of my many meetings with Benegal came just after the
publication of Sekutu Mehtas book on Bombay, Maximum City, which details
the underworld control over Bollywood. It was so pervasive that Sanjay Dutt was
implicated and jailed for eighteen months In the book, Mehta narrates a story
told him by Bal Thackeray of how his father, Sunil, came to Thackeray’s house
in Bombay’s Parsi colony. “He wept, he did aarti around my wife,” going round
her with a lighted lamp in homage. This was to get Thackeray, whose party was
then in power at the local government, to get his son released. As Dutt senior
paid homage to Thackeray, eight or nine film producers waited in an anteroom
hoping this would do the trick as Sanjay Dutt was involved in many films and, if
they were not completed, they would lose crores. Over the years there had been
other reports of mob influence. There had been the Bharat Shah case where this
Bollywood film-maker was accused of being in league with the mob. He was
acquitted by the High Court but the feeling persisted that the mafia plays a part
in films; a large part. Benegj^ took a cool, historical view:

There was a period when they came close to doing it. It was about ten or twelve
years ago. In the early 1990s.There were a few court cases. Bharat Shah, who was a
very big producer at the time, was implicated. Later on he was acquitted. Gulshan
Kumar (the music producer) got killed as he came out of a temple he used to go
to in Juhu. The perpetrator of the killing, Abu Salem, has been extradited from
Portugal. He is the guy who gave Sanjay Duvt the gun. His father, Sunil Dutt, was a
very fine man. But a doting lather. He got compromised a great deal by his son, like
Natwar Singh [the former Indian foreign minister, who resigned after allegations he
had received money from Saddam Husseinj.The growth in the Bombay underworld
came about through gold-smuggling from the Middle East. Then it moved into
real estate and then into films. After the expansion of Bombay, which had started
in the 1970s, tapered off, there were no pickings for the mafia. That is when the
underworld came into the picture. A lot of them came to the film industry, both
for money laundering purposes and for extortion. Putting money into production,
buying films for overseas distribution, using the laundering mechanism to get
money into foreign exchange, and so on. Nothing would have seriously happened
to them if it was not for their hand in the Bombay blast. Then, there were terrorist
implications and the Government of India began to take it seriously.

The blasts were the culmination of the breakdown of Hindu-Mu.slim
relations which started in December 1992 with Hindu mobs, aided by BJP
leaders, demolishing a mosque known as the Babri Majid in Ayodhya, claiming
it had been built on a Ram temple and destroyed by medieval Muslim rulers.
The riots that followed would convert Benegal from film-maker, who observed
what others did, into a man of action who had to act to save his fellow human
beings:

The riots of the city were the worst riots to take place from January 6 to January
I 3 > 1993.The police allowed the riots to take place. Immediately after Babri Majid,
Muslims attacked Hindus. Exactly a month later, the Hindus retaliated. In Tardeo,
on this road [and he gestured at the main road past his ofFice] all the Muslim shops
were being gutted. I live on Peddar Road. I could not come in the car. 1 used to
walk to my office. In my building are the offices of The Midday newspaper. Midday
is Muslim-owned. We prevented Shiv Sena from attacking it. Narashima Rao was
the Prime Minister, I had access to the Cabinet secretary in Delhi. I was on the
telephone to him and told him,‘you have to get normality back in the city.’They
wanted to start the buses. I said.’ please don’t start the buses. It is very easy to set
fire to a bus. Start the trains.’ In Bombay, when trains run, everybody thinks life is
normal.Then, in March 1993, came the blasts [bombs going off at various places like
the stock exchange,Bombay’s equivalent of9/11 [.The Government intervened and
nothing happened after that blast; everything was controlled. It is healing, but slowly.

It is coming together. There is no friction of that sort any more.

Yet, more than a decade later, the wounds have not healed enough for a film
about that period to be passed by the censors:

A film was made called Black Friday by a chap called Anurag Kashyap. Completed
about two and a half years ago. But it has been banned. They are holding onto the
censor certificate until the case has been heard. The release calls it a true story. All
the characters portrayed in the film, their trials are going on now.

Benegal is sure that the most traumatic events in Bombay’s life for nearly a
century did not affect Bollywood? “Not seriously.”

And, interestingly, when it came to Hindu-Muslim relations at a personal level
there is more openness, compared to the days just before and after partition.

Both Aamir Khan’s wives have been Hindus. Shah Ruk Khan has a Hindu wife
and neither Aamir nor Shah Ruk nor Salman Khan have changed their names.
They did not need to. When Dilip Kumar came into films, which was a little before
partition, the polarisation between the communities was becoming very, very
strong. Leading up to partition, those years were particularly bad. If you needed
acceptance you couldn’t possibly have a Muslim name. The man who played Ram,
for instance, in the famous Ram Rajya, was a Muslim, but he had a Hindu name,
Prem Adip. Similarly, the chap who played Lakshman, was a Christian. For Ram
Rajya, probably the most popular, mythological film ever made in this country at a
time when religious polarisation was at its greatest, you had a Muslim playing Ram,
and a Christian playing Laksham.That was amazing. That never fails to amaze me,
as an Indian. Despite BalThackerkay, due to Bollywood, the unique idea of a Hindi
character being played by a Muslim, is not difficult. One aspect of Hindu behaviour

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is that it has nothing to do with belief. Hindu behaviour does not automatically
contest other people’s beliefs. You can’t say that of other religions. Christians do,
Muslims do,Jews do, everybody does, except Hindus. Which is why you can have a
Hindu majority country but it is not brute majority behaviour. That is the reason.
You don’t contest. As long as you don’t tell me what I should do. If you do not sit
on my head and say my beliefs are wrong, I wiU never contest yours. When you look
at the right-wing Hindu militancy that has developed in India, it is totally reactive.
There is no ideology.

Javed Akhtar has said Bollywood culture “is quite different from Indian culture,
but it’s not alien to us, we understand it.” He has suggested that for a non-Indian
to understand Bollywood they should look to the Hollywood Westerns.

Never were there sheriffs and gun-slingers like the ones you see in a Western.
And never was there a village with one street where a man would start walking
silently and wait for th^raw; this whole culture has been developed by Hollywood.
And it has become a reality in itself It’s a myth that Hollywood has created. In the
same way, Hindi cinema has its own myths.

In a sense, these myths are not just the ones portrayed on film. Bollywood
lives are also different from most Indian lives. Here, people fall in love and marry,
they marry across caste and community and religious barriers, they have affairs,
divorces, and have created their own little world from which they project an
India which, as Akhtar says, is different but still believable to most Indians.

The strength and power of Bollywood lies in its ability to withstand change
and adapt to it. So, it has survived the arrival of television in India, and Amitabh,
its greatest ever star, even used television to reinvent himself. It has also survived
piracy, the Bombay mafia and the undoubted use of untaxed black money for
producing films. Bollywood is always producing new myths, or so burnishing old
myths that they seem new. This keeps the cinema renewing itself and drawing
new adherents.

India, said the novelist R.K. Narayan, would always survive. Bollywood, we
can be certain, will always be capable of reinventing itself It remains the most
wonderful example of Indian use of Western technology in a wholly Indian
way.

Bibliography

This book involved massive research over four years, extracting information from many
continents and countries.

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